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Our daily workwear reports suggest one piece of work-appropriate attire in a range of prices.
This top just looks like summer to me. Usually, around this time of year, I’d be looking forward to wearing this with sandals and white jeans. Right now, I’d be just as excited to wear it with a navy suit if it meant I could leave my house. Either way, it’s going to be a great piece to have on hand when the weather warms up.
The top is available in regular sizes XXS–XL and tall sizes S–XL at Banana Republic. Do note that it’s a shorter body length, so if you’re not going to be wearing it with a high-waisted bottom, you may want to consider going for the tall size. It's $74.50 full price, but you can get 40% off regular-priced items right now, which brings it down to $44.70. (They're also offering an extra 60% off sale styles.) Poplin Puff-Sleeve Blouse
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Seen a great piece you’d like to recommend? Please e-mail tps@corporette.com.
Sales of note for 9.10.24
- Nordstrom – Summer Sale, save up to 60%
- Ann Taylor – 30% off your purchase
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything + extra 20% off
- Bergdorf Goodman – Save up to 40% on new markdowns
- Boden – 15% off new styles
- Eloquii – $29 and up select styles; up to 50% off everything else
- J.Crew – Up to 50% off wear-to-work styles; extra 30% off sale styles
- J.Crew Factory – 40-60% off everything; extra 60% off clearance
- Lo & Sons – Warehouse sale, up to 70% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – BOGO 50% everything, includes markdowns
- White House Black Market – 30% off new arrivals
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Anne
concern of the day — when we go back to work but before a vaccine how should we handle dry cleaning? The whole things seems gross to me now: hand my dirty clothes over to someone, who send them to be handled by someone else in a factory-like setting, who sends them back in plastic for a third touch, and a fourth touch handing the clothes back to me when I pick them up.
MagicUnicorn
I’m using this dilemma as a business reason for suggesting that my workplace adopt a more casual dress code, at least while all of This is happens, once we reopen. We already have deep cleaning, visitor restrictions, and offset hours planned, so why bother requiring stuff you can’t wash easily?
MagicUnicorn
*happening
Monday
+1, also given that we are told to cough or sneeze into our elbows. I’m only wearing rugged, machine washable stuff and would advocate we continue the relaxed dress code until all other precautions are also ended.
A.
+1, also given that we are told to cough or sneeze into our elbows. I’m only wearing rugged, machine washable stuff and would advocate we continue the relaxed dress code until all other precautions are also ended.
Anon
Yes, this. I don’t dry clean much but I need to get my coats dry-cleaned when the cleaners reopen here. I am planning on just leaving the clothes, in plastic, hung in my garage for 2 days when I get them back. I think I read that on dry, porous surfaces like cloth and cardboard the virus can only live a maximum of 24 hours, and probably less time. On wetter or slicker surfaces it can persist longer.
I am also going to say, OP, that the middle step in all that handling you recount is that they dip your clothes in chemicals to CLEAN them. I doubt coronavirus can survive that cleaning process.
Carmen Sandiego
+1 – I didn’t think that the virus would be able to survive the cleaning process, so I would almost treat it like how I treat opening a package. Remove the outer wrapping and toss it. Wash my hands before touching what’s inside. Also, leaving it in a separate space for a while should be sufficient in the event any virus survived.
Cat
+1
Small Law Partner
Yeah, exactly this.
Anonymous
Either wear only machine washable clothes or get over it. You aren’t getting covid from your dry cleaned clothes. This isn’t a real risk it’s anxiety.
Anon
I would have probably phrased this more gently, but yeah. This is not a real risk. My understanding is our dry cleaners have been open this whole time in our otherwise-super-cautious area (Bay Area) and I was actually planning on running a few things in soon…
Monday
Yeah, my concern is not about the dry cleaning process but about the fact that I pretty much never dry clean items after just one wear. It’s more about clothes just not being cleaned often.
That said, Woolite home dry cleaning sheets work well for me.
Anonymous
Yeah, it’s possible that she’s overly anxious, but it’s definite that you’re rude and mean.
MagicUnicorn
My take isn’t that the clothes themselves are a disease vector but rather that the contact points inherent in the drop off, handoffs between the cleaning personnel, and pick up prices increase the potential to pass infection.
MagicUnicorn
Autocorrect is an ASS. I have no idea where “prices” came from.
Anonymous
I pull the sleeves down on my l/s tees and use as door grabbers, so change when I get home and wash after wearing (and definitely #teamdryer).
Anon
That’s fair, and in the current shelter in place situation is something to consider.
However, the question was posed as what happens when we all go back to work. Which implies one is seeing many other people throughout their day, every day, and to me this incremental once in awhile dry cleaning interaction will likely not be that incremental at that point.
Anonymous
Your only contact is when you pick it up. That is all that matters. And if you wear a mask and hand sanitizer after it’s not actually high risk at all.
MagicUnicorn
Personally, I don’t dry clean at all, ever, so I don’t have any contact to consider for myself.
However, my point was that the process as a whole creates contact points behind the scenes for more than just the person who owns the clothes. That is why I am going to suggest my office allow for a more casual dress code for a while.
MagicUnicorn
Perhaps it wasn’t clear: I think the health and safety of people beyond myself DO matter, too.
Anon
Weird, I just called my drycleaner about picking up stuff I dropped off in February. I didn’t want them to think it was abandoned. I dropped it off and went on vacation. Came back, and my office shut down and I haven’t been in the city since.
LaurenB
TIL that drycleaners were still open in my state. I guess I had assumed they weren’t, but I’ve only been wearing washable clothing. (And TBH, sometimes a few days in a row …)
Anonymous
I dryclean really rarely since we went casual. But I’m not eager to wear even my washables (like MMLF dresses) because I don’t want them to take a beating and I think they really need to go in a dryer (or the back of a hot car) to kill any gunk on them. My jeans are all snug at the moment, but using them would be ideal. Gah — was really enjoying leggings and shorts but once we start going back it will have to be in casual office clothes (vs actual casual clothes).
Anonymous
This isn’t necessary. You can just wear your clothes. Idk how people are going to manage to function with this level of anxiety.
Anonymous
Why don’t you give her some actual information about how it’s safe? Because it is trolling to tell someone you don’t know how they’re going to function. Is that a worthwhile use of your time? Do you enjoy being unkind?
Anonymous
+1 And I am someone who has been diagnosed with GA in the past. I cannot imagine trying to function worrying about whether the plastic cover on my dry cleaning is going to get me sick.
Anonymous
Cool. What about that is useful to the OP?
Anon
It seems to be very important to you to brand anyone being more cautious than you as suffering from anxiety. I don’t know if you think you’re helping people, but you’re not. You’re probably one of those people who called everyone worried about Coronavirus in January “crazy.”
No-Fear
I don’t think you need to nuke them after you wear them, unless you were going to re-wear right away. The virus doesn’t live in clothes forever.
PolyD
Let’s think about this – clothes get washed in soap and water. Hands get washed in soap and water. If washing clothes in soap and water is inadequate if you don’t run the clothes through a hot dryer, then soap and water also is not good enough for hands and we should be baking our hands in the oven after washing.
Anonymous
Well, on the surface, yes. But it lingers on different surfaces for different amounts of time, fabric is more porous than skin, your dirty clothing might touch the rim of your washing machine then your clean clothing might touch it again. Do you have science backing you up or are you just acting like an expert on the internet? Feel free to point us all to your sources.
PolyD
Well, I have an undergraduate degree in microbiology and a PhD in genetics. Not a ton of virology or immunology, but it really doesn’t make sense that soap and water is good enough for hands but not clothes – skin has pores, too. And my clothes spend a lot more time in a washer with soap, getting all bashed around, than the 20 seconds we are supposed to wash our hands.
And sure, be careful of surfaces, but this is more of a problem when one uses a shared laundry room, as I do and have been doing for the past month. I let most of my clothes air dry and am not sick yet!
Also, I believe I was responding to the idea of washing clothes in a regular washer, not dry cleaning. Also also, no need to get all rude when someone tries to inject some logic into the conversation.
Anon
Different BS and PhD in Biology, but I agree with PolyD. The important point is that soap + water denatures the virus, rendering it ineffective. That’s why hand washing is effective. I’m not technically sure about the non-polar dry-cleaning solvents, a it is true they are different but I do know generally they are quite effective at denaturing protein and lipids (that’s why they work…), which is the same mechanism of viral denaturing. Also, I think dry cleaning is done at high temperature, which also denatures virus generally. Together, I think that is quite a lot of evidence that regular cold-water washing and/or dry cleaning is likely to be quite effective.
Anonymous
Actually, sincerely thank you both for responding to this. My cloth masks finally came in the mail & I was going to do some research on properly cleaning them. It’s a relief to know I can wash them in the machine to sanitize them without worrying about hot water or whatever. For many of us, it is not always obvious and of course we want to be as safe as possible within reason.
It’s just really exhausting to have so much bad information and fear mongering floating around & have to sort through all of it … because the stakes can be high. Being told just to use common sense isn’t helpful because some people’s lives do depend on getting it right (and you can’t know if it’s right without being well-informed).
Anon
I thought dry cleaning was specifically not washing clothes in soap and water.
Lucille Two
Dry cleaners never closed here. They remained open under our governor’s order, and I have continued to drop off and pick up my stuff (I dry clean a lot, not just work clothes). With masks and social distancing it just doesn’t seem that risky to me.
Senior Attorney
Same here although it’s my husband who’s been continuing to use them.
cbackson
Personally, I’m not concerned about this. But my philosophy is to take the steps that we know have a big impact in terms of reducing risk, i.e., staying home, wearing a mask in places where I can’t distance from others (grocery/drug store, doctor’s office), and washing my hands. I’m not focusing on things where the risk is minimal or theoretical, so I’m not sanitizing my groceries/packages or wearing a mask just because I happen to be outside (note, I live in a low-density area so walking or running, for example, doesn’t bring me into close contact with people). It’s good to be careful about washing your hands and minimizing your contact with “high touch” surfaces (grocery store carts, gas pump handles, etc.) but I can’t worry about everything in the world.
Formerly Lilly
The fact that dry cleaned clothes are done in large batches, with different customers’ clothes mixed together, has always seemed icky to me. My Monday thru Friday clothing and very dressy clothing used to be almost entirely dry cleaned, but I have moved further and further from that with each passing year. When someone on here said that Ann Taylor suits could be machine washed and dried on gentle cycles, it was a game changer for me.
Anonymous
More proof that “seems icky” is a really stupid decision making framework.
Anonymous
What’s wrong with avoiding things that one finds icky? She’s also helping the environment. There is no rule that says you must wear, and dry-clean, dry-clean-only clothes or you’re a bad person.
LaurenB
But they’re being CLEANED, for heaven’s sake.
Katie
Dryel (at home dry-cleaning) has been around for ages and it works beautifully for me. Woolite also makes a similar product. Unless something gets a stain and truly needs a professional to get it out, I use it for all my dry cleaning. Granted, my fanciest pieces are MMLF, so maybe it’s not for anything super high-end, but I’ve never had an issue and I think it’s a perfect solution in this situation.)
anon
I’m a Healthcare worker who doesn’t wear scrubs (case management). My team started dressing much more casually when our hospital started seeing COVID patients so that clothes could be laundered daily. We don’t have contact with COVID patients but we are in the facility all day and it just seemed to get the prudent thing to do. If I didn’t come to the hospital every day I don’t think I would be as concerned.
Anonymous
The governor of Virginia, who is a doctor, banned his staff from wearing ties because they spread germs. Everyone should be wearing washable clothing and laundering anything worn outside the home daily.
Anonymous
I would be more worried to get it from the Dry Cleaner’s staff. How many people do they come in contact with every day. It’s a high contact business. Ugh.
Anne
Thanks all – I don’t have a garage to leave them in for a few days and agree that that would help. I’m going to check out the machine washable blazer mentioned, that might work better for me in the short term.
TrixieRuby
Can I just say that I hate puffed sleeves? When will they go away? Or, like high-low hems, which are ok by me, are they here to stay?
Z
I saw this puffy sleeve dress at Target and thought it looked so cute. I tried it on and the elastic around the sleeves was SO constricting, did not buy it. I think puffy will go away eventually, reminds me of peplum tops, took a while but we don’t really see those anymore.
Anonymous
So, I like the top, but somehow when I wear anything light blue and white it ends up looking like a hospital gown.
No Longer Anon
Same, especially things that are looser.
Ribena
Where’s Diana Barry when we need her? (I love puffed sleeves)
anonforthis
I love puffed sleeves but haaaaaate high-low hems. Go figure!
Never too many shoes...
Me too!
ANON
Right, the puffed sleeve look is very “Dorothy, on the yellow brick road” rather than adult, even adult at play. Also, horrifically unflattering for anyone who is either short or even slightly broad.
Housecounsel
I look like a linebacker in these puffed-sleeve tops and dresses.
pugsnbourbon
I have one puff-shoulder top that just looks like a normal top on me because of my giant shoulders.
I’m not a huge fans of puffy sleeves, but I do really like the “bishop sleeve” look where the sleeve is loose but gathers to a cuff at the wrist.
Ses
Kinda pirate vibe to me, particularly in the stripes
pugsnbourbon
I wear a lot of stripes and have a pixie cut. More than once I’ve put on hoop earrings, looked at my outfit, realized I looked like Smee, and changed out the earrings.
wWavoin
you say looked like Smee like it‘s a bad thing :)
PolyD
If I ever have a reason to wear real clothes again, I find that a little bit of puff (the above top looks like a reasonable amount of puff) helps balance my narrow shoulders and larger bust. I do prefer tops with puff shoulders to be more sober colors to avoid the little girl look, though. Just before the shutdown I got a plain black top that had slightly puffed shoulders and it looked really good on me.
Anon
+1
The original Scarlett
I’ll be the outlier – I love them, and I think they bring a little style to an otherwise boring shirt. I just ordered this one and hope to wear it out of the house sometime
Senior Attorney
I ordered it, too! And a similar leopard print one for good measure!
The original Scarlett
<3
Reply to Mini Money Diaries
Yesterday someone posted that they had a nearly $100k negative net worth at the beginning of 2013 and are now at +$445k and people seemed to have a lot of questions on how that was achieved. I have similar numbers, so thought I would share what worked for me.
Beginning of 2013: net worth was -$90,000 (student loans and credit card debt)
Beginning of 2020: net worth was $613,313.
I bought a home at the end of 2019, so the net worth includes my down payment but no other appreciated equity (which would be de minimis, if anything).
I graduated from law school in 2012 with 90k in loans (including undergrad). Had no family help at all for any of my education, so pieced together scholarships and loans did the rest. When I graduated, I got the cheapest 2-bedroom I could find and had a roommate for the first year, so kept my rent at $900 for my first year. Once she moved out I just kept the apartment but it was still only $1,600. I tried to live as cheaply as possible – only eating in the subsidized cafeteria at work, having lots of meals paid for by billing 3k hours, not contributing to my 401k that first year (which I regret now and have maxed out every year since…) and paying off all my loans by the end of my second year. I stayed in that apartment for a full year after paying off my loans and only moved once I had a solid savings account (6 months of living expenses) in hand.
My next apartment was still cheaper than most of my friends who were also in biglaw, and I dedicated myself to saving for a down payment. I kept my fixed living costs low, even though my discretionary spending was higher once I paid off my loans, including travel, nicer clothes and shoes, etc. I finally saved enough for a down payment by May of 2019 after graduating law school in 2012. My apartment was around $1mn and I put 20% down.
That net worth includes a bunch of favorable stock gains in my investment accounts and retirement, but I have about $100k+ in cash (which I really should stop keeping so much in cash…). It was a lot of luck and hard work, but I’m never going to be someone who says “Well, I cut out lattes and avocado toast, and money just materialized” because I think it just makes people feel bad, as if it’s purely choices and hard work that get people to better financial positions.
I’ve not had a partner to share expenses and I live in NYC, so it’s not like I’ve benefited from a biglaw salary without state and local taxes (looking at you, Texas friends!). I also went in-house at the end of 2017, so have not been in biglaw this whole time.
Casper
So they reopened golf in my state today. If I find out that my bosses are out playing golf while I’m in the office handling their meetings and they’re “working from home” I might loose what’s left of my mind
Anonymous
Don’t some of them already do that? Golf during the day for “business development”?
Casper
Of course they do. It’s just somehow worse when I’m handling all of the in person aspects of their jobs because they’re scared of the virus
Anonymous
Yeah, what I’m saying is why would you even hope that they aren’t on the golf course right now? If they were already golfing during work hours, they will feel even more entitled to do so now.
Casper
Yeah, you’re right. Any self awareness from lawyers about why they shouldn’t be golfing while requiring their staff to put themselves in danger is likely too much to hope for
Housecounsel
My husband is on the course now. Two players only, no carts, no drinks in the club after because it’s closed. His firm isn’t back in the office yet so I don’t think he is inconveniencing anyone. I am very glad, to tell the truth. It’s really his only outlet/destressor and he is a lot more pleasant to be around when he has this time.
Casper
As long as he doesn’t have his assistant still working in the office and meeting with his clients…
Housecounsel
Nope, nobody is in his office, even though law firms were deemed “essential” under our governor’s order. The firm sent everyone home and they haven’t really decided who is coming back to the office and when.
Anonymous
I would pay to “golf” now just to go outside to a new place. Wondering: can you walk the course? Do you have to use carts? I’d even bring some clubs (which I wouldn’t use). I am a bad golfer and often just ask if we can concede a shot (times a million) and put. So it is tee, concede, concede, concede, put so as not to delay the game. I could just dispense with the charade entirely, but I so love being outside on a good day (or any day now, TBH).
Anon
No one really polices you on the course. You could pay for a tee time and then spend the requisite amount of time at each hole so you aren’t holding up the people behind you or encroaching on the people ahead of you.
Anonymous
Would they make you take the cart? If I really just want to walk the course, can I do that?
Anonymous
They are actually restricting carts, so you have to walk. Check the rules for your area, but most likely walking is encouraged.
Anon
Public golf courses have been open this entire time in my area. No carts. Clubhouse and facilities, etc. are closed. Social distancing required on the course. My husband has played so much free golf while walking the course, and he says he routinely sees couples walking the course with their dogs,etc.
Ashro
Is anyone else getting the Ashro ad at the bottom of the screen? Out of curiosity, I clicked through and looked at the church fashion (dresses + jackets + hats) and it seemed like it would work for the UK royal wedding guest attire / fancy horseracing attendees. Which was unexpected (and fun clicking; better than more coronavirus news).
Anon
Anyone having a difference of opinion with their spouse re: how to handle social distancing / quarantine? How are you handling it? What about if it involves work stuff? Like my husband is going to meet a couple coworkers in person to work on a project that does not need to be done in person. He doesn’t want to insist that this isn’t worth breaking work from home for. They are essential so work partly at home and partly in the field which involves going into some people’s homes. I think they are starting to feel like they are in the community anyway so what the heck. I feel like the fact that the other coworkers are in the community too are all the more reason to stay away from each other.
It’s hard though because we are all adults and have to make our own choices. I know someone jumped on a pregnant commenter here who said her husband wouldn’t “let her” leave the house. I don’t want to be controlling but his choices impact my safety too. He assures me he always has my safety in mind too and wouldn’t do something that he deems unsafe. I just think him and I have different takes on what is safe.
As another example, in two weeks, he wants a friend who is also an essential worker to be able to visit just in our basement (which has its own bathroom) and with them staying 6 feet apart. This friend would be sleeping over in our basement. That friend is also an essential worker but has less public contact than my husband.
I recognize that we have different personality types and he is struggling more than me with social distancing. I’ve agreed to some stuff that others here would have said no to like distant socializing with just one set of neighbors in a very large yard, staying 6 feet apart and not going into each other’s house.
At what point do I assume the role of my husband’s “warden” and how much would I damage our marriage by putting my foot down on some of this stuff? I do see where he is coming from that we haven’t been able to keep a sterile home because of his job anyway. I don’t know.
Anon
I think you need to separate the friend visiting from the work project – one is pretty objectively a violation of social distancing guidelines, the other, not so much, especially if your husband is an essential worker. I also think you need to talk about this and come to a compromise on what you’re both comfortable with as things start to open up. If he wants to go to a restaurant and sit outside, are you okay with that? Etc.
Anonymous
How is the friend a violation though? We have a stay-at-home order (which is SAH and you can gather but <=10 people). I think that there is a lot of wording-specific analysis. OTOH, I know divorced parents where one parent didn't think he could see his child because he was not "visiting to care for a family member" but merely "visiting to enjoy kid's company" which I think is obviously the same (welfare is welfare, no, for your kid, when they have disrupted lives and plans and may have anxieties and lonliness). I hate that for divorced families — I know of a couple of instances where adults were not trying to deny access but truly afraid of running the risk of arrest for seeing their child.
Anon
Yeah, that’s fair. I guess that was my read of it, but you’re right – it’s really unclear (which is not helping anyone).
Anon
Lots of states now allow small social gatherings if you follow social distancing.
Anonymous
You NEVER become your husband’s “warden.” Wouldn’t you hate it if he became yours?
If I understand correctly, your husband is already out among coworkers and going into people’s homes? So, according to your definition of “safe,” you’re already not “safe.” Unless I understand incorrectly that he has been strictly quarantined, never going to work, and the coworkers are the ones who have been partially at home and partially at work.
I’d suggest that you sit down and define for each of you what “safe” actually means and how important safety is to you. Is there a way you can meet in the middle? Is there “reasonable safe” and “anxiety-fueled safe”? If so, how are they different, and how can you tell when you’re in one or the other?
Anonymous
Homes vary — is the homes your husband is going into very crowded (like he is a social worker of farmworkers who have 10+ people in a trailer with windows that may not open) and likely lived-in by at-risk people? When he comes home, does he change/shower? I know people who work in ERs and they manage and their families understand the risks. Everyone takes temps daily.
I wouldn’t have issues with these (although — visit with person outside vs in your basement), but I feel like if my healthcare friends aren’t getting it and transmitting it to their families, we are save generally unless we are running into high-risk groups without taking healthcare like precautions. [E.g., my sibling works for a school system and delivers meals to kids of meat factory workers living in very close quarters and there is often a language barrier in how coronavirus things are presented and many people may not be literate in their native language; she is mindful of how she conducts herself and showers/changes upon returning home and uses hand sanitizer b/w stops.]
Anonymous
I think it’s just easier to decide no optional gathering than to try to assess each person’s home. You’re just never going to have all the necessary or accurate information even if you interrogate the homeowner thoroughly. Plus you will offend people by going to some homes and not others.
Anonymous
I think it was does spouse go into high-risk situations at work or is it more like setting up home theatres for rich people in giant houses where you may be more distanced than usual? There are some zip codes in my city with no cases (yet!) likely b/c there are 5000+ sq feet houses with 2 rich people. Yes, they may have some household help, but those seem to be low-risk home visits (vs home health care, where you are perhaps bathing a person and doing personal care tasks).
Anonymous
So are you saying the husband might be the one to spread it, and should stay home based on his potential exposure?
Anonymous
The question is whether he should do optional gatherings or invite people into their home. I think husband & wife are both fine with him doing his regular work.
Anon
I guess medium risk. He does the tech for people on electronic monitoring with the state. He can put the ankle bracelet on someone outside but has to go inside (like Comcast basically) to set up the tech part. He’s not seeing sick people or anyone with a sick person in their house or anyone that knows they have been exposed. Those people have their appointments put off a few weeks.
LaurenB
Well, presumably the folks w ankle bracelets haven’t been out and about!
Anonymous
I think you talk about it and keep an open mind. Maybe two weeks is too soon, but maybe 4 is okay for you? Bigger picture, whether your State reopens tomorrow or September we are all looking at a year or two of managing risk while living our lives until we get a vaccine.
Anon
Yes you should put your foot down. You’re asking him to follow basic public health guidelines, not to mummify himself in plastic wrap or put a protective bubble around your house. No friends, no non-essential meetings. Him pushing back on this most basic safety practice would be a red flag for me.
Anonymous
Yep. If he can’t agree to keep the family safe, he needs to go stay somewhere else.
Anon
This would not be in violation of the public health guidance in my state and many others.
Anonymous
I think the correct answer is to defer to the person who wants more safety whenever possible. Obviously, your ideas for restricting contact are within reason. You shouldn’t be required to take risks … and your husband can always blame it on you if he needs an excuse to tell people no, or simply say my wife and I agreed not to have others in our home until our county reopens or whatever. How would he feel if you did get sick? If the answer is that he wouldn’t care/take any responsibility, then you have a whole other problem. Don’t think of any of this as controlling your husband, but as respecting each other’s needs and the need for safety is paramount. Explain to him about your differences in what you deem safe. Even if he thinks your wrong, he should respect them.
Anonymous
It’s a difficult question. Not exactly what you asked, but my ex and I share custody of our child. He literally has not left his apartment since March — has everything delivered, our child doesn’t leave the house when with him. I respect social distancing guidelines, but have taken our child on hikes and walks, and to ride her bike. I go to the grocery store once every two weeks (without my kid).
For us it has been a matter of compromise. He was concerned that I had our child outside in public spaces like trails, but also acknowledged that she needs fresh air and exercise. He doesn’t love that I’m going to the grocery store, but deals with it. On the other hand, last weekend my brother wanted to arrange a social distancing picnic with the cousins. While I would’ve been comfortable with it, I knew it would’ve really upset my ex, so we didn’t go. Normally I wouldn’t put so much weight on his opinion, but we are essentially in quarantine together (though under separate roofs) due to custody.
I don’t know what the right answer is for you and your husband, but I suspect it will involve compromise on both ends.
Anon
i just want to applaud you for taking the mature approach to this, which is really beneficial to your kid
Anon
I’d also like to applaud both of you – this is a great example of balancing two peoples’ preferences here.
Ses
+1 you sound extremely reasonable.
Anon
As a divorce attorney, THANK YOU!
Anonymous
Thank you for the kind comments. It has been tough at times, especially the realization that he is the only adult with whom I’ve had any sort of in-person conversation in months. And in general, it really chafes sometimes to have to compromise with him of all people. But especially in times like these, I just have to deal and make the most of it. And the more we at least try to get along, the easier it is when we have to deal with a significant disagreement.
Anonymous
He is lucky to have you even as an ex.
Anon
yes – we live in a state that is reopening and DH is returning to his office next week. i am anxious he will not wash his hands enough, forget his mask, etc. They actually do not have to wear masks in his office. We went to see a friend from 6+ feet away and he started getting close and I am the one who pointed it out. He also does not want to talk about the virus, whereas I would like to talk about it a lot more. It is definitely adding to my anxiety.
Anonymous
I think he has a responsibility to you to take reasonable precautions and you have a responsibility to him to manage your anxiety. Talking about it all the time is not necessary.
Anonymous
My husband is the same way. He just does not remember to take basic safety and hygiene precautions. He will forget to wear his bike helmet, refuse to wash his hands after taking out the garbage or touching raw meat, forget to lock the front door, etc. This is why I am the one who has been doing all the grocery runs. I can’t trust him not to pull down his mask to scratch his nose. Fortunately, his company is likely to implement permanent WFH for all staff.
theguvnah
Your husband can’t remember to wash his hands after touching raw meat??
This is not normal.
Anonymous
I would avoid asserting my preferences about how my spouse does their job. It sets a bad precedent. You might think it’s unnecessary to have this meeting in person, but clearly his team has decided it is necessary and he agrees enough to go along with it. I don’t think this is Clearly Wrong in a way that would give you cause to step in. I also wouldn’t want to open that door – is my spouse now going to second guess me every time I stay late at the office? Seriously don’t pull that thread.
The friend thing is different. I’m not really clear why this friend needs to stay over right now, but if it’s just a social visit, then no absolutely not what is DH even thinking. Social distancing means no social visits with people outside your home.
Anonymous
To be clear, my state (perhaps not OP’s state) allows for social visits with social distancing if < 6 (strictest version; we may be up to 10 this week). Purple state / blue state and local govt. You can obvs choose to be stricter. If we've cut out 99% of human contacts, it seems that going to 98% is not statistically different (I know it's like the STD analogy, where you are with everyone that that person has been with, but if the only contacts are of the glancing grocery store variety or the occasional distanced ones, it should be OK).
Anon
I don’t really fault his logic to be honest. It’s basically, we are exposed because of my job and friend is exposed because of his job so we might as well let him come over. To answer the question about why friend has to come over, he’s really struggling with some pre-existing mental health issues and needs somewhere that isn’t home with wife and kids (not the happiest place pre-quarantine) and isn’t work to decompress for a day or two. Yeah he could get a hotel somewhere but I think what he really needs is time with a supportive friend and my husband is that person to him.
As I talk it out here, I realize if my BFF was struggling and I wanted to have her over and make an exception, I’d be pretty upset if he said no.
I think what made me hesitate is my work is doing SO MUCH to be responsible with all of this and I feel like bending the rules makes that all for nothing. But as others said, this is even allowed under many of the rules.
I think I’m going to text him and apologize for getting mad about his work meeting and tell him I’m giving serious thought to the friend thing and we can discuss further tonight.
Anonymous
I’m having a hard time with this too. I have deferred to my husband for the past 2 months, who refuses to go inside a grocery store or really leave our apt at all. But our state is loosening restrictions in June and he is saying he will not see family until there is a vaccine (!!). I cannot accommodate that. I miss my family. It’s fine if he won’t see his. I don’t want to fight about seeing my family when it’s not in violation of any rules. (also for what it’s worth I am pretty sure we both already had Covid)
Anon
UPDATE from the OP:
Hi everyone. Not sure if I have read everyone’s comments yet but I just had a GREAT conversation with my husband and a lot of this was a misunderstanding. I’m fully aware that my anxiety played a big part in this. Also, he did not volunteer the information up front I needed to see that this was necessary in-person meeting. The meeting went really well and they took a lot of precautions so I feel much better. He also totally understands my train of thought on friends. The funny part is we both basically had convinced each other of the other’s position. We are going to re-visit as the date gets closer but we are having real good conversations about these issues now. Thanks for the advice and support!
Monday
Random question:
What’s an issue or topic on which you’ve significantly changed your opinion in the past 10 years? What changed your thinking on it?
Airplane.
Organic v conventional. I am never paying extra for organic again. I used to think that organic was safer, healthier, better for the environment than conventional farming. Most, if not all of this is marketing and greenwashing and the appeal to nature fallacy. Organic uses pesticides too. Reading research from a food scientist.
Anonymous
DH works in pesticide regulation and I know for a fact that your statements are not even remotely true. The fact that you don’t seem to understand the differences between pesticides used in organic agriculture and chemical pesticides used in conventional agriculture says a lot. Organic is better for the environment. This has been scientifically proven numerous times. It is not necessarily healthier.
We buy organic for foods where the skin is consumed such as apples, strawberries, blueberries, green peppers. When budge allows we also buy organic in other fruits/vegetables.
Pure Imagination
Agree with this except that organic is likely to be healthier because of the lack of pesticides and their impact on the endocrine system, etc. It’s not like organic tomatoes have 500% more lycopene than conventional or anything like that.
Anonymous
The question was “what have you changed your mind on.” Not “please then let’s all attack each other about it.”
Anonymous
You could have stated your point without implying that the OP is stupid … you’re rude so why would anyone listen to you?
Anon
I would think that organic is often healthier for farm workers, even if it’s not healthier for me. There are also people who have rare allergies who really struggle since there are no requirements to label food to specify which pesticides were used.
But the farms I buy from are often pesticide-free rather than organic (partly just because the requirements for the organic label favor larger operations).
Pure Imagination
It’s way healthier for farmers. The pesticide burden of conventional produce on people with high exposure levels is tied to significant negative health outcomes, especially for mothers and children. There’s some great research out of the Central Valley on this.
worker health
Yes, yes, yes. Think of the farm workers.
Airplane.
Sorry, no. Organic is not safer, healthier or more nutritious. Organic uses pesticies. I didn’t say anything about differences in pesticides, that is all you. There is no level of pesticide residue on foods (organic or conventional) that reaches any level that is unsafe for consumption, you just paid more for the organic foods. Organic farming is not more sustainable or better for the environmental – organic farming uses 20-40% more land than conventional farming.
Anon
It is also hard for small farmers to get their crops certified organic even when they use organic or near-organic methods, resulting in Big Organic vs small farmer. It’s about more than pesticide use.
New Here
Organic farming can often require MORE pesticides because the ones approved for organic production may not be as effective as traditional pesticides and thus require more applications.
Anonymous
Actually how much land is used and how the land is treated are to entirely different questions. But, sure go drink the run of from a regular farm and come back to say it’s the same as organic. You apparently can’t understand the difference between chemical and biological pesticides and do not appear to be familiar with the fact the US allows tons of pesticides which have been banned in Europe because they cause cancer. Let alone the problems with neonicotinoids and bees and the numerous neonics that are still allowed here even though banned in Europe. Don’t pretend you understand the science when clearly you do not.
Anon100
Similar here. Now I try to buy fresh produce as much as possible from local producer’s only farmers markets, even if I pay a slight premium.
Pure Imagination
Feminism (liberal to radical). My thoughts shifted significantly between about 2013-2016 and were initially inspired by a friend’s Facebook posts about male violence. Most people I know do not agree with much of what I believe, but several friends have come to similar conclusions over a similar length of time. Some topics are easier to grasp than others because they don’t really challenge our long-held beliefs and instead seem to confirm what we (as women) knew all along. Others take a long time and a lot of reflection to grapple with.
Anon
Could you say any more about this or what resources you have been reading?
Anon
I’m curious about the details–can you think of a couple of specific example points where your opinion has changed?
Pure Imagination
It’s been a while, but some good “intro” resources I used at the time were Liberation Collective (wordpress) and Feminist Current (which I still read). Liberation Collection has a lot of links to other blogs that I enjoyed, although I think most are defunct now. For more in-depth reading, I’d go with the classics of second wave feminism – Andrea Dworkin and contemporaries. Their relevance in the age of Trump has been so striking.
As for specific issues, my thinking has evolved significantly on prostitution, surrogacy, male violence, sexual violence, gender identity, and “choice feminism.” In a very oversimplified nutshell, my feminism used to be more like “if everyone can choose their own choice, then everything is great!” Now it’s shifted to something more like “if we can destroy male supremacy in all its forms, everything could be great.” Another nutshell could be the classic “I’m a feminist. Not the fun kind” quote from Dworkin.
Anon
What did you think about prostitution, surrogacy, male violence, sexual violence, or gender identity? What do you think now? I don’t mean to poke or challenge you, just trying to think about how I think about things and how I might change (or not).
Pure Imagination
I used to think that surrogacy and “sex work” were totally fine as long as the individual “chose” that path. I now think both are exploitative and inherently violent and anti-woman. I never used to recognize that men commit the vast majority of all sexual violence against women and how much we obfuscate this fact in our day to day lives. I believe that g*nder is an oppressive system that places women below men socially, physically, and economically, not something that individuals “identify” with. Most of what we call identity is what I call personality, and yes, people, especially women, are often punished for not adhering to the stereotypes associated with their sex. Men can derive some protection by adhering to masculinity/toughness, but women cannot protect themselves from violence by adhering to stereotypes of femininity/weakness/submission. Most crucially, I believe that biological sex and the perceived capacity for reproduction is the defining characteristic underlying women’s oppression.
Again, this is very oversimplified for a quick post on this site, but that’s where I’m at. I arrived at these opinions over a very long period of time, 2013 to present. If you’re interested in learning more, I really advise you to follow your own path and constantly challenge your thinking (and ignore the ad hominem attacks you’ll receive). I took SO MUCH for granted and never challenged certain beliefs until I was forced to by extreme cognitive dissonance, which was initially sparked by my aforementioned friend’s Facebook posts.
Anon
Interesting–thanks for the thoughtful reply. Definitely food for thought.
Pure Imagination
Reposted to avoid m0d…
It’s been a while, but some good “intro” resources I used at the time were Liberation Collective (wordpress) and Feminist Current (which I still read). Liberation Collection has a lot of links to other blogs that I enjoyed, although I think most are defunct now. For more in-depth reading, I’d go with the classics of second wave feminism – Andrea Dworkin and contemporaries. Their relevance in the age of Trump has been so striking.
As for specific issues, my thinking has evolved significantly on prostitution, surrogacy, male violence, sexual violence, g*nder identity, and “choice feminism.” In a very oversimplified nutshell, my feminism used to be more like “if everyone can choose their own choice, then everything is great!” Now it’s shifted to something more like “if we can destroy male supremacy in all its forms, everything could be great.” Another nutshell could be the classic “I’m a feminist. Not the fun kind” quote from Dworkin.
Housecounsel
Political parties. I was a moderate Republican and even hosted a fundraiser for a somewhat left-learning Republican politician. I have drifted far left. Need I even explain why?
Anon
+1
Leatty
I also switched political parties. Ten years ago, I was much more “me” focused and cared more about paying less in taxes than social issues. That changed a couple of years later when I volunteered through Big Brothers Big Sisters, as it really opened my eyes and my heart in a much needed way. I also have become a much more ardent feminist than I was then.
Plus1
^^^ All the heart-eyes for you! What a testament.
Anon Probate Atty
Me too. Never hosted any fundraisers, but was active in Republican politics in my early 20s and always voted Republican until 2016. Since then my views have…changed considerably.
Monday
Playing along: I used to think that moving in with a partner wasn’t a huge deal, and didn’t put all that much thought into it the first time I did it. I was in the “logical next step” camp–if you like the person, spend a lot of time together, and trust them enough to share bills, why not? Having experienced how horrible it is to break up a cohabiting relationship, I take it super seriously now. I would never again live with someone I wasn’t pretty sure I wanted to be with permanently. And I would never again move in after less than a year of dating.
Airplane.
+1 Same lesson learned. Same reason.
Anonymous
This. Haven’t lived it, but seeing a friend go through it was enough.
Anon
Agreed
Moonstone
I volunteered with a books-to-prisoners outfit and got an education about the incarceration crisis in the US, which really reset my thinking. I’m not a prison abolitionist, but I think there need to be changes.
anon for this
Systemic disadvantage. I used to think that people who were lower income/not working just weren’t trying hard enough. I understand a lot more now about how nearly all of our systems are designed to be easy for the rich/educated/influential and require much more effort from others, especially minorities. (Lots of reading Barbara Ehrenreich, Sarah Smarsh, Sarah Kendzior got me there, and these views are borne out in the current crisis.)
No Longer Anon
If you haven’t read it, I strongly recommend Evicted. It’s a tough read but I understand so much more about systemic oppression and poverty. The Color of Law would also be on that list.
Annony
+ 1 – Evicted was a fantastic book
Thanks, It Has Pockets!
Similarly, my views on affirmative action changed when I got to college (granted this was more than 10 years ago). In high school they really drilled it into us that it was unfair, reverse discrimination, you won’t get into Harvard because “some black kid” with the same credentials will be automatically admitted over you. It wasn’t until I got to college that I did actual case studies on the subject that I learned how these programs actually work and why they exist, and my option did a full 180. And in hindsight I feel foolish, we definitely touched on de facto segregation in junior year history, but my dumb teenage brain failed to make the connection.
Anon
I had a very similar experience. I was a white middle class teenager trying desperately to string together scholarships as a way out of an abusive family, and it seemed like all the aid was reserved for people who were minorities but not necessarily better students. After going to school and seeing the obstacles some of my classmates faced both in college and after graduation, I realized the problem was my parents, not the system, and that “merit” and “athletic” scholarships were often ways to attract rich donor parents rather than help students who deserved and needed it.
Anonymous
I had the opposite experience. I was a white student with an EFC of zero. My freshman year, I had two minority roommates whose parents were doctors and could afford to pay full tuition and provide their daughters with generous allowances and their own SUVs. Simply because of their race, the roommates automatically got free tutoring from the university. I did not. I now believe that affirmative action programs should be based on SES, not race.
anon
Oh interesting! I was pro affirmative action (and still am) but I thought it was a end all be all when I was in high school. After college, I realized how much of a bandaid on a broken leg affirmative action is. I still think it’s a good thing that should continue but I do think it allows a lot of privileged people to ignore the broader systemic issues, as if giving spots to a small number of very talented minority students somehow makes up for everything else, particularly when it doesn’t address what happens to everyone else who was stuck in the poor school system who wasn’t extraordinary enough to get the benefit of affirmative action programs.
anon
Environmentalism. As I get older, I’ve just become so much more conscious of my waste and consumption. I’ve made a lot of the simpler switches away from single use items, but still have a long way to go. It’s really depressing to read about what’s happening to the planet.
No Longer Anon
Look at what I thought at the time from a teenager’s perspective since I was 17 10 years ago; The need to “have” a religion or at least be able to justify why I chose what I chose on demographic forms. My best friend in high school was on the fundamentalist side of Christianity and I thought that everyone had to have a religious preference, even if it was agnostic or atheist. She didn’t understand how I didn’t have a strong idea of God, religion, belief, and it’s role in my life. So I explained and justified and battled with her about it.
It took a few years but now my “religious preference” is “IDGAF,” and I see no need to justify it to anyone or explain it. I don’t know what I put on those forms, because it is so unimportant to me.
She still doesn’t get it, for the record.
LaurenB
Did you grow up in a religious part of the country? I’m in my fifties and at no time did anyone I know of ever care if someone professed a religion or not. In my youth, yes, certain people did not want their children to marry others of a different religion, but it’s not like they thought everyone *needed* to have a religion. This is just so out of my realm of experience.
No Longer Anon
Long comment in mod for using a word I should have replaced with gardening.
Anon
Different poster, but I’m from the south and a lot of times the first question people ask you is what church you attend.
Anonymous
I am a lawyer in Atlanta, and many, many lawyers, especially those practicing in suburban and exurban areas, identify prominently what church they belong to in their website biographies. When I was discussing jumping ship from one firm to another with a partner, I put my foot down about one in-city firm where every.single.lawyer had identified their church affiliation early in their bio.
Seventh Sister
My Dallas-based sister, who is not a member of any church, explained to me that it’s kind of like asking what neighborhood someone lives in or what they do for a living. I still find it pretty shocking tbh.
Anon
Not the poster above, but i was asked at work “What’s your faith family?” by a justice system employee at a government law office.
Never too many shoes...
That is horrifying.
Seventh Sister
I grew up in a rural-ish exurb in the 1980s. Conservative part of a blue state. Religious affiliation was a big deal, and most people identified as part of a Christian denomination (majority were Catholic, then there was everybody else :)). I remember being really shocked that my sister’s bffs family didn’t go to church, period, and wondered if they were really “allowed” to celebrate Christmas (my mainline Protestant Sunday School experience was dominated by people who really wished we go could go full evangelical).
Living and having kids in a big city, people are surprised (and often a little suspicious) when I tell them that we are members of a church. I usually follow up immediately by explaining that it’s a liberal denomination because a lot of people have pretty negative associations with Christian churches.
No Longer Anon
Yes, although not a place where I think people would assume was religious. But my area had a LOT of Mormons, and a lot of hardcore Christians. At my high school, the Mormon kids were allowed to go to the seminary next door for one period each day (which they made up for in credits by doing extracurriculars that got credit). No one else was allowed to leave campus during the day, only them. Religion was a big thing, and they (like my friend) did not understand how someone could just not be religious. We have tons and tons and tons of megachurches- you can guarantee that if a grocery store closes, it’ll be replaced by a “cool” Christian megachurch. Things like gay marriage, trans acceptance, and s-x ed (….) are still big issues because ~Bible~. During high school debate, someone I went up against used the value and argument of “biblical ethics.”
This same friend’s mom HATED me because the first time my friend asked me what religion I was I said something like “Dunno, I don’t really believe in God.” The friend later told me that her mom waged a campaign against me in their house for practicing “ungodly” ideals or something. Which is hilarious because I was a Hermione-level rule following person (still am in many ways), and was probably, objectively, a really good influence on her hot mess daughter.
Anon
Ha, I could have been your friend and now IDGAF either.
anon
I have come around to the idea of nuclear power (in modern, well regulated reactors VERY different from 70ies era tech we’re using today) as a viable power source for mitigating CO2 emissions.
I also used to think ‘I don’t want to get something just because I am a woman’ with regards to affirmative action, but over time and seeing discrimination often enough I have completely changed my mind on equal opportunity tools.
Anonia
Fast fashion. After the 2013 Dhaka garment factory I did some reading about the fashion industry and was appalled by the conditions of the factory workers. I don’t make lots of money, but I try to buy better quality clothes, take good care of them, and keep as long as I can. Walmart is really the only store around, and that’s also the stuff that shows up in the used clothing place; so I mostly shop online.
Anon New Yorker
I understand much more about white privilege now. I hadn’t thought much about it 10 years ago — I grew up very poor and am an immigrant. I dealt with all sorts of disadvantages and worked crazy hard to get where I am — but now as an adult and a professional, I “pass” and am assumed to be from the same educated middle-class background as most people I encounter. I realize the extent to which my non-white friends don’t “pass” in the same way — even the one who grew up very rich, with actual servants, is assumed to come from a “disadvantaged” background whereas people don’t believe me when I say I grew up on food stamps, because I’m white and articulate.
I have also become much much more feminist since becoming a mother. In my 20s, I thought that if I worked hard, being a woman wouldn’t hold me back. As soon as I was visibly pregnant, people started taking me and my career less seriously, and I’ve had to address an incredible amount of negative assumptions about my availability and commitment to my job. I’ve seen way too many opportunities handed to men that I had to fight for, and fathers get praised for doing things for which I get criticized.
And politically, I’ve started out pretty left and moved further and further to the left.
Small Law Partner
This so much on white privilege and getting a “pass.” I also grew up a kid of poor immigrants, but I’m a light-skinned hispanic with a Spanish last name that also has a “white” equivalent that is spelled the same way without an accent mark. I don’t use an accent mark on my name, so people assume I am white.
Also thought being a woman didn’t matter (lol), but now realize you have to be in the right environment for it to not matter that much.
Also switched to thinking universal health care and free or heavily discounted college tuition is a good idea. And that the prison system is a disaster and we need to worry about prisoner’s civil rights.
I think I just grew up.
anon
Agree with all of this. I’m not an immigrant but did not have what one would typically consider a “privileged” childhood but I am able to pass super easily and I now realize it’s because I’m white.
Totally agree on feminism and being a woman. Definitely did not realize the extent sexism affects everything. I now understand that just because some women succeed in a particular field/industry/company/firm does not mean that sexism isn’t afoot, it means the women who succeed are truly extraordinary while many of their male peers are quite mediocre.
Anon
Fast Fashion: I completely opted out for ethical reasons probably about 5 years ago. I was a student at the time and previously thought it was the responsibility of wealthy folks to consume responsibly. The change has saved me money in the long run because the few very expensive purchases I have made are supplemented with incredibly inexpensive thrifting.
Veganism: I was a vegetarian for a long time and I thought I was doing my part and vegans were extreme. I was wrong, I was not doing enough and quite frankly was kind of a bad person for the baby stepping.
Zero Waste: Again thought it was extreme. It is not extreme and it’s pretty easy to I corporate good practices into my daily life. It has ended up saving me so much money too.
Brass: I thought it was ugly, I have grown to appreciate it in historically appropriate home decor/fixtures.
Pure Imagination
While we differ in some of our beliefs/practices, I too found that certain things I thought were “extreme” or over-the-top were actually easy to adjust to. It’s good to challenge our perceptions and misconceptions about how hard changing for the better can be.
Senior Attorney
It’s been a bit more than ten years now, but I was VERY religious for a good portion of my life and now I am a proud and happy “nothing.” The short version is that I just couldn’t continue to check my common sense at the door; the somewhat longer version is that my then-husband brought me into the religion and I couldn’t reconcile the way he treated me with the values he purported to hold.
Also: Fast fashion, white privilege, systemic inequality. And I am in the midst of a big change about travel, I think.
Anon
My career vs life balance. 10 years ago I was still in the very stressed out go-go-go phase of my career, angling for any promotion I could get. Then I got the promotion I’d dreamed of, was on a plane every week when my kids were little, and became part of senior management. I was hanging with the c-suite at a very very large F500 company.
What I found was that 1) my senior management peers had no life outside of work and were basically miserable, and 2) they weren’t smarter or better than me, they were just more willing to make their career 95% of their lives.
I did it for four years and that was enough. I had several moments of recognition, but one of them was arguing with someone about a report on my cell phone on a beach in Hawaii when I was supposed to be on “vacation” (no one in senior management was ever really on vacation) and I was missing my kids frolicking in the waves.
My career since then has continued to pay well (knock wood) but isn’t at that level of intensity and I’m fine. Everyone is fine. No one is going to die if I’m not an SVP any more.
You can love your job, but your job is never going to love you back. Live your life.
Anon
“they weren’t smarter or better than me, they were just more willing to make their career 95% of their lives.”
This is so true, and such a game-changing revelation. I finally realized the really successful people I knew in my company were not the best workers or smartest people, they were just the ones willing to sacrifice their lives for their jobs. No thanks. I’m pretty happy staying lower in the company and having some actual balance in my life vs. giving up my whole life to get a job title. I’ve turned down a couple of opportunities because of this and I have zero regrets.
CPA Lady
Same. I don’t really care about having a fancy or important career or being highly achieving. I’m okay being an average worker in an average career and never making partner. I’m not going to work 80 hours a week ever again, if I can help it.
Ellen
I think that each person must make their own decisions as to what and how much work we should be doing. Personaly, I do NOT mind working day in and day out and billing even now exceeds 80 hours a week, though before the pandemic, I was doing alot more (and enjoying it). But the pandemic has caused me to think about what is important in life; after all, what would happened if I caught the virus and got very sick, or even died? Would I leave a mark on society for what I do, or not? Is it worth all of the time I spend with defense of my cleint’s? Or should I do something more rewarding? I do not have the answers yet, but hope this time away from the office will help me “evolve” and come up with the answers, hopefully once I find a man, he can help me do so. In the meantime I urge all HIVE members to understand and work with each other instead of against one another. Dad says prisoners often are at each other’s throats b/c they yearn for freedom and independence, and that is now us. Let’s be more cooperative, and less catty, and we will all get through this! YAY!!!!
Anonymous
I’m actually really ashamed to post this but I went to a college with a formerly American Indian mascot (which was banned by the NCAA bc racism) and was vocally pro-restoring the mascot. I truly believed it was not racist and was honoring the tribe. I look back now, 10 years later and cringe at the image of the young white woman who thought she could decide what was racist and what wasn’t.
Anon
I grew up going to very religious schools and learned a version of American history that was deeply racist on many fronts (the textbooks referred to black people as “Neg****”, held up Columbus and Cortes as heroes, minimized any discussion of oppression of indigenous peoples, and didn’t go into the Civil Rights movement besides saying that schools desegregated). We had to read a saint biography every week in middle school, and many of them were about missionaries to Native Americans and how brave and holy they were for risking their lives and comfort to save souls. Elizabeth Ann Seton and Katharine Drexel, in particular, were my personal heroes because I was taught that they educated freed black and Indian children when no one else would.
I am forever grateful for my college gen ed history professor who gave us a completely different perspective on colonization, forced schooling, and what it was like to live through American history without the veneer and whitewashing of “they were different times”, “it was for the greater good”, “it was God’s will”, etc.
Anonymous
I used to believe that the United States was the greatest society ever established. That belief was shaken in 2016, and now it’s entirely gone.
Anon
Same, absolutely. And it’s not just because I hate Trump, I’ve learned more about the pretty terrible foundations this country was built on and I realize it never really was “great.”
Anon
Marijuana. I was raised to think it was on the same level as heroin. It’s not. I still don’t love it, but my husband uses it and that’s a price of admission I’m willing to pay.
Anonymous
Same. Also I use it for medicinal purposes, and occasionally recreationally. Even 5 years ago I was against it.
Anonymous
I’ve been back at my office this week, and I have to say it’s been nice to get dressed, back in a routine and getting to see my coworkers. We’re not all back – this week just 20% of our 2000 workforce, then each week more. Everything has been very well thought through. I know many of you are apprehensive about going back to your offices. I have some advice – if you can go back in an earlier phase, do that. It’ll help a lot to go back with fewer employees so that you can get adjusted to the procedures. IMO, if you wait to go back and 90% is back, it’s going to freak you out more. I’m on the team planning the return and we’ve given supervisors the flexibility to bring back employees as they see fit with the goal that all employees will be back no later than June 1. Those of you who are complaining about going back to work but don’t have a medical reason – you need to accept that you have to to back at some point and you don’t call the shots. If you don’t like it – look for another job. I know we’re going to have layoffs later this year. It’s inevitable. I know I’m going to get crucified for writing this but those who are whining about going back to the office w/o a medical reason are going to be looked at more closely for layoff and those who came back with a positive attitude and tried to make the best out of a weird situation will be looked upon more favorably. Sorry ladies – it is what it is.
Anonymous
Well, none of us can predict the future. There is the possibility that an outbreak will occur and some of us/some of your colleagues will die. Will you feel good about your stance then?
You might have a point, but the least you could do is deliver it without calling people whiners. Have some decorum. Are you responding with more dignity and grace in your workplace? Because your behavior is also being noted.
Anonymous
people are whiners and she is obviously not hoping people will die. you whiners are so dramatic.
Anonymous
I mean, I’m working from home permanently without having to even ask, so how could I be whining about it?
When I was younger, I would have agreed with OP and I might have died for my cause. Which would have been a really stupid mistake. It’s not whining to have the critical thing skills and priorities to push back against potentially marching to your death for your company. There’s no reason to assume “whiners” don’t know that you view them negatively. Many of them have just decided, rightly, that you/your company doesn’t matter/has poor judgement (plus have a dim hope that you might see reason).
If you really want to risk your life over this, be my guest. But quit complaining that people don’t want to follow you — or you’re the whiner.
anon.
I’m tempted to ignore this insane comment but it’s literally impossible to go back before there is childcare open. I guess you just think all women with children should quit?
Anonymous
It’s not an insane comment and I think people need to be preparing for a reality in which your options are going to be a) take leave or b) hire childcare.
Anon
This! I agree. We can’t all work from home until there’s a vaccine. Our economy would collapse.
Pure Imagination
Why though? Why can’t people who CAN work from home continue to stay home? Obviously we’re not talking about nurses or ambulance drivers or people who must appear in-person. I have yet to see a single good argument for why telework-ready companies should be rushing everyone back to the office.
Anonymous
Pure Imagination that’s a different conversation. I dont think companies should be doing this! I just think many of them will be, and people should be preparing for that. And hopefully you’re fortunate enough that your company won’t!
Anonymous
I can “work” from home but am tired of it taking 12 hours do do work that could be done in 8. I am exhausted. College kids are home and would be grateful for any paying work; ditto teachers in a few weeks (and they are often available afternoons now).
Anonymous
Have you read about how the virus spreads in closed areas like restaurants and call centers? Because you will very likely get sick at work if any of your colleagues is a carrier. If workplaces have constant outbreaks that doesn’t help either.
Pink
No. Stop it. I f*ucking hired child care when I had a child. They are closed. So now you want me to double pay for a service I’m not receiving, because some out of touch lady on the party planning committee has decided I need to have my @ss in my seat in order not to be fired? Eff all that noise.
Anonymous
I just don’t understand this comment. I don’t want you to do anything! If your day care is closed, stop paying them. If your employer requires you to come back to work, which many employers will do, you will need to take leave, hire childcare care, or get fired.
I hope your employer doesn’t require this! I hope very much you’re fortunate enough to not need to go back to work in person! But that isn’t going to be reality for many people and I really don’t understand why my acknowledgement of that actual fact is promoting you to personally attack me.
Anon
“But that isn’t going to be reality for many people and I really don’t understand why my acknowledgement of that actual fact is promoting you to personally attack me.”
You’re seriously wondering why you’re getting attacked? It’s because your post and subsequent comments are totally unempathetic, woefully out-of-touch, demeaning, degrading, disrespectful and out you as a person who I would never want to work with or for, or even sit next to on an airplane. For a one-hour flight. I don’t know what you felt like you wanted to accomplish by posting what you did but what you actually accomplished was making yourself look like an a**. I feel sorry for anyone who works with you or knows you in real life. Be ashamed of yourself.
Anonymous
I’m not the original poster!
Anonnn
My office opens next week, but the schools don’t reopen until the fall. Daycares are still closed. Au pairs can’t travel, so that source of childcare is gone. Finding a nanny took a significant amount of time before covid19, and demand is much higher for their services now.
Parents understand they need childcare. But an entire nation of working parents can’t create childcare options out of thin air.
Of course I will go back to the office when the courts reopen. I am “whining” now because there is literally NOTHING I can do in my office that I can’t do at home. I’m so angry on behalf of people who don’t have any childcare; it makes me hate my firm. When I get a new job, I will be the opposite of a referral source for business. I was their best associate before this.
I have childcare so I am not negatively personally impacted. But the irrational push to get everyone together indoors without any benefit to the work makes me concerned about the decision-making ability of the partners.
Anonymous
Actually we all do have a medical reason. We don’t want to die or kill our families. Get down off your high horse.
Anonymous
That’s not a legal reason not to go back to work, which OP correctly pointed out. If you read the increasing data every day, unless you are immunocompromised or OLD, go back to work. If you have something that needs to be accommodated by allowing you to work from home, your employer will engage in the interactive process with you. Difficult people will be on the chopping block.
Anonymous
Wow. You are just begging karma to deal you a pride-obliterating slap upside the head. Please come back here and post about it when it happens; the change in your tone will be very amusing for the rest of us.
Anon
Yep – 100% correct!
Anonymous
Unless we all decide to rise up and become “difficult” and overthrow the out-of-touch smug rich ruling class that we have inexplicably allowed to rise to power.
Sincere but Curious
How will your employer engage in an interactive process? How many people will I need to reveal my medical history (or my spouse’s medical history to?), how much proof will I need? I’m not a difficult person, I work well at home and seamless transferred my work. I’m producing at 110% right now.
Done with this
I’m not immunocompromised or OLD but I do have a rare (like so rare that I’m enrolled in an international study based out of medical institute in France and I’m in Texas) genetic mutation that causes inappropriate blood clotting. We know that this virus has caused blood clotting so that feels a little dangerous. What level of private, medical history do I have to tell my work to qualify or should I just lay down on the chopping block? Do you think they need to speak to all 3 of my neurologists and my oncologist plus my general doctor?
I’m over pace and have been since this started so if my firm wants me to justify working from home, I’ll start talking to recruiters.
Sincere but Curious
Honest question, how are you handling those employees who do have a legit medical need to continue telework or WFH? How many people do they need to reveal their medical condition to in order to gain some flexibility. How are you handling return to work for those employees in high risk groups (older than 65, existing co-morbidity, etc.) What about continued flexibility for those with children and no school or available childcare?
How are you handling risk in the work place? Are you taking temperatures? Asking health questions each day? Requiring masks?
I’m really curious how this is all going to work for various populations.
LaurenB
Sounds like too bad, so sad, everyone’s got to be back in the office by June 1. And no discussion of how essential everyone’s physical presence is, or why people can’t come in shifts, WFH, etc. Such a dated point of view!
Anonymous
Right, and a lot of businesses will just lay people off. They are going to have to do that anyway. They can’t pay us to not work.
anon
This. OP needs to realize many people aren’t just home because they were told to be. We’re here because we need to be.
Anonymous
People who have a need to be accommodated can communicate it to their boss or HR. Your employer does not have to accommodate you with your chosen accommodation, if there is something else that could be done. Employers are not able to say to their employees, hey you are fat, do you need an accommodation? That could be discrimination on the basis of a perceived disability, similarly, you cannot discriminate against older people. Employees who have a need for an accommodation should communicate it to their employers, who have a responsibility to work with the person on a reasonable accommodation. What this board thinks is reasonable may not be legally required.
anon
This. If you have a medical condition that requires an accommodation, it’s on you to talk to your company about it. That’s always the case. It’s unreasonable to ask employers to design their workforce to accommodate every possible condition. That’s always been the case, coronavirus just greatly extends the number of people who may need accommodations. However, just like an employer isn’t required to provide materials in Braille to all employees but would likely be required to for employees who are blind, an employer isn’t required to let every employee work from home but may consider doing so for those with pre-existing conditions (although whether that’s actually required is a different question that I’m certainly not an expert on)
Airplane.
Actually, some of us do call the shots. And some of our employers are seeing a lot of benefits and productivity from more WFH and care more about getting work done than rushing back to the office. If my employee is just as productive at home, I’m not going to force them to come back right away as soon as the office opens. Not everyone is “whining.” Your whole post is like you are raring to get “crucified.” It’s really weird.
Pure Imagination
Thank you for your eminently reasonable approach to this. There is simply no reason to rush employees back to work when they are just as productive at home. Helpful bosses are going to inspire so much loyalty during this crisis.
CountC
+1 I am someone who has gone back to the office because my mental health and productivity depends on it. However, I DGAF where anyone else does their work as long as it gets done and, save for our manufacturing plants and test labs, almost everyone can do their jobs from home. I no longer manage people, but when I did, I also did not care where they did their work as long as it got done.
I am childless, but have so much empathy for those who have kids during this period. I couldn’t handle WFH long-term without kids, I certainly cannot imagine doing it with kids. I also do not expect people to double buy childcare.
Airplane.
+1 also childfree over here and also do not expect people to double buy childcare! Insane. One of my coworkers had to keep paying daycare which closed along with the schools to maintain kiddos spots, then pay a sitter to come so one or both spouses could WFH.
Anon
Yep. I could be your coworker. It’s been a scrappy couple of months and my employer (who many people demonize) has been AMAZING.
Anon
I have a huge amount of empathy for people with kids right now. That said, WHY are you continuing to pay for childcare? A month or even two, I get. But after that… why?? You want to hold your spot? I promise you won’t be the only one not paying. And plenty of people will be losing jobs so spots will open up at your current place or others. There’s something close to a martyr complex that is nagging at me.
Pink
Yep: Paying to hold my spot. This is probably anxiety but I will not risk losing my spot at day care (or them shutting down) and then trying to find a nanny AFTER I’ve started going back into the office. That being said, my day care notified me I do not need to pay for May tuition (which is great since they’re closed). This is just a rough situation. I’m tired of all the haters on here pretending like moms “just need to figure it out; it’s not that hard lol.” Thanks for everyone who supported my poorly-worded, emotional rant.
Anon
our childcare has you prepay for the year and is not offering any refunds
Airplane.
Yes, a lot of them in the area are pre-pay for the entire year, no refunds you signed a policy that says you understand day care closes every day the school district is closed.
anon
Trust me, it’s really not much of a choice. We’re not playing the martyr role, here. Can you trust that many of us have been through the arduous process of selecting a daycare, finding a spot at a daycare, and know that we can’t do it all over again with the snap of our fingers? You are woefully ill-informed about how child care works.
Anon
The reason people are paying to hold their spots is because in most places, there are very few reasonable options for childcare for kids age 2-5. For babies, you can do nanny or nannyshare so there will be a lot of options due to the many unemployed people seeking those jobs. But for toddlers who you want in daycare/preschool for the social-emotional benefits, there are only 4 options in my large city that are in a location that my husband or I could get to and then get to work in under an hour. I assume at least 1 or 2 of those will go under during this pandemic, so then I have only 2 options. I am paying for my current daycare to hold my spot and pray that they stay open. When you consider how far most people love from their jobs and that most daycares aren’t near public transit, it may help you understand how this is not martyring. The daycare crunch was real before and will be much worse after.
anon
I’m also a manager and will not be rushing anyone back despite significant setbacks in productivity. My team is struggling, but let’s face it — it’s not because they’re WFH. They used to WFH beautifully before the pandemic. It’s because they’re at home during a crisis trying to work. Frankly, I think going back early would activate even more anxiety and stress and be even more detrimental to productivity.
Pure Imagination
This is crucial for employers to understand. If you have seen new productivity dips in your previously highly productive WFH workers, it’s due to the pandemic/childcare/stress/anxiety, not to the institution of WFH. Many will be even more stressed and anxious if they’re made to return to the office too early before childcare is available and before it’s safe enough to do so.
Anonymous
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I am not as productive as I’d like to be because I am up all night worrying about how to keep my family alive and fed, then I’m a zombie all day. If you forced me to come back into the office, I would be even more stressed out and less productive.
Panda Bear
I agree that many of us will need to go back eventually… but I still think it is reasonable for employers to allow those whose job functions allow them to work from home, who want to work from (and whose performance has demonstrated that they can do so effectively) to keep working from home. Why push to go back, if there isn’t truly a business need for it?
anon8
Exactly. Employers need to get rid of the butts in seats mentality. Times are changing and companies need to realize that WFH is a viable option for many.
Anon
Not the OP but I get what she’s saying. She tried to give some honest, helpful advice – if you have to to back try to go back sooner than later so that you can adjust. I hadn’t thought of that and I appreciate her pointing that out. She also said some pretty blunt things that I appreciate. Many employers can’t let employees work from home until there’s a vaccine – it’s just not possible. So instead of complaining how terrible it is that our employers are making us come back to the office, just accept it and make the best. No employer is going to bring back employees without following recommended CDC guidance ! And in fact, I bet our offices will be safer than the grocery stores. I appreciate what she said.
Anon
given the fact that our own president has decided not to follow the CDC guidelines, I don’t think you can say that no employer will bring employees back without following them.
Anonony
+100
Sincere but Curious
How will they be safer, exactly?
Anonymous
Do you appreciate her tone?
Anon
“I appreciate what she said.”
Thanks for letting us know you are just as much as an unempathetic, callous a** as the OP.
Anon
Lol a Texas restaurant told their employees that if they wear face masks, don’t bother to come in to work, because that’s not the restaurant’s hospitality style. Employers dgaf.
No-Face
Yeah, I read an article about an employer that literally required people with positive covid tests to come to work. Shocker, there was an outbreak.
Anon
Lol at “no employer is going to bring back employees without following CDC guidance.” That’s a fantasy. It’s called guidance, not regulation, for a reason. Corporations are incentivized to do as little as possible to ensure the safety of their workers because they have to maximize profits (and now, conserve cash), regardless of whether they are public or private, large or small.
Anonymous
Well, don’t forget to consider that the early workers will be the canaries in the coal mine. It’s hardly worth some imagined easier transition to be part of the group that gets sick (and hopefully shifts the policy back to work from home.
Anon
i think everyone should read the CDC Guidelines that our president decided to ignore: http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2020/images/04/30/reopening.guidelines.pdf
anon
I’m curious: Are you in an industry that can not work from home at all? Will 100% of your workforce come back this month or was there an occasional wfh contingent anyway?
LaurenB
“I’m on the team planning the return and we’ve given supervisors the flexibility to bring back employees as they see fit with the goal that all employees will be back no later than June 1.”
It’s hard to react to this without knowing what type of office you have (from a physical layout / standpoint) and how “essential” everyone being in the office is. At first blush, however, this feels slightly insane, unless what you do is life-changing AND you are easily able to maintain plenty of social distancing.
Pure Imagination
The mere fact that they are aiming to have everyone back by June 1, no matter what the virus is doing, shows that they are insane. Smart employers who want to keep top talent are going to be responsive to community needs, not adhere to inflexible faux-deadlines, and let people who can WFH productively continue to do so for way longer than another three weeks.
Anonymous
Maybe think of it as “this is today’s plan”. I think we all get that there may be another plan tomorrow. Ugh.
Everyone: just go to your corners and commence yelling.
Anon
“You need to accept . . . that you don’t call the shots.” The fun thing about life, actually, is that individuals do have agency and choice–maybe not all the choices they want, maybe not with the consequences they want, but choice nonetheless. Your employees aren’t slaves. They aren’t robots. They, like us, can weigh risks and benefits and come to their own conclusions and decisions. One conclusion they might reach is that you and your employer are terrible.
Anonymous
This. My employer is treading on shaky ground right now as it makes noises about wanting to end WFH. We are already understaffed and have difficulty recruiting in the best of times. Right now about half of my department, including all of our top performers, is at risk of quitting if they try to force us back into the office prematurely.
Anonymous
Yes, this. Employees can also choose to work elsewhere in the future, remember you unfavorably when you apply at their new company later, lose morale and turn in barely adequate work until they can leave for good, give the company a bad reputation that causes it to lose clients … they do have power too.
Anonymous
I agree that you are sharing what will be reality for many people, whether or not we like it. Although my job can be done mostly from home, 90%+ of the employees in my company are public facing, and cannot work at home. We are also an essential service, and the government requires we provide services during the pandemic.
My company is very much against working at home, it’s simply not the culture and it’s clearly communicated to everyone. I’ve been at home for a few weeks now because the company has enabled 50%+ of employees to work at home, albeit for some people it’s A&B teams. As soon as the state says ok, we’ll be back in the office. I’m sure they’ll try to accommodate as much as they can, but it will eventually be a matter of show up or lose your job.
For me, it’s helpful to read this post about going back and what it was like, it helps inform my own decisions about how I will approach it. Because reality is, many people will be going back to a workplace, like it or not.
Anon
Just curious, OP – are you under 30 years old? Under 25? I would be willing to bet a thousand dollars you are not even 30. And that’s about 90% of the problem here.
Anon
Agree. Oh to be 25 again when I knew everything about everything.
Anon
A coworker “Sarah” is consistently slow to respond to external requests that often funnel through me. Sometimes, these requests come from contacts I also know or have worked with, so the folks follow up with me when they haven’t heard from her. I then feel awkward asking Sarah if she’s reached out. Yesterday, a professional contact reached out after I connected him with Sarah almost 3 weeks ago. She hadn’t contacted him. Sarah told me to tell him that she’d been very busy and would hopefully get back to him next week. I asked her to please reach out herself and re-forwarded his email and phone. She did send an email last night and CCed me asking if they can connect in a week and a half, which will be over a month after the contact originally asked to connect. There have been other similar delays, and some of my professional contacts have asked me privately why our internal processes take so long to reach consensus or decisions on joint projects or collaborations.
I worry that these delays reflect poorly on me, and I don’t like being put in the middle, which is why I gently pushed back when she wanted me to field him off. Sarah is not my supervisor and works in a different department, although our two teams work closely together. I’m not sure how to manage this situation up. Perhaps she is really busy. I’ve asked if there’s a better person to direct contacts to, but she insists these type of external requests should come through her as that’s her role managing external relationships.
I’ve only been at this organization less than a year, and this may be an organizational culture thing. Any tips for this situation?
Anon
What do you mean, external requests to connect? Are these customers whom she is irritating, or are these people doing more professional networking and she rightly does not think it is her job to make you look good?
Anon
I tried to be vague in my message, but I see it wasn’t particularly clear. We’re a nonprofit, and these are other nonprofits, community leaders, politicians, etc that want to partner on projects. Her job is something like “Partnerships Director”. The reason people often reach out to me is I do fundraising and meet many of the same people.
No Longer Anon
Ooh. With that context, this is even worse. I figured it was something like that.
Have you tried having a conversation with her about it? Word travels in the nonprofit community, and if people are seeing your org as unresponsive or uninterested, it will hit fundraising too.
Do you have a shared supervisor? I wonder if you (or, if you aren’t, Sarah’s equivalent, Fundraising Director I assume), Sarah, and the supervisor could sit down and plan out how to coordinate better between partnerships and fundraising. Does she have someone to delegate initial contact to? Is there a form email that can be sent without much personalization describing her role and what partnerships entail?
Anon
Yes, I’m her equivalent. We don’t have a shared supervisor. A form email is one idea that we could work with!
LaurenB
Have you directly said, “I’m concerned that X first reached to you on X date and it will now be a month since that time — I know it’s been crazy, COVID blah blah blah, but is there a way we can make sure that outside connections are handled in a prompt fashion going forth?”
Anon
I haven’t. I was afraid that would be too blunt and look like I’m micromanaging a colleague when I don’t really know her workload. But I agree, a month isn’t prompt.
Anon
I don’t think that’s micromanaging. It’s fair to conclude that how she treats these stakeholders could directly and negatively impact your (very important fundraising) efforts with the same. I think it warrants a discussion, absolutely.
anonshmanon
if it’s a pattern (and I assume not a recent thing that could be explained with COVID/colleague having to devote a lot of time to caregiving etc.) then addressing the pattern would not be micromanagey, imo. I like LaurenB’s wording.
Anon
Thanks LaurenB! I used your language and also added in some wording about please let me know when you don’t have capacity to field outside connection requests, so I can fend them off on my end.
Cd
How did you and your significant other decide whether to have kids? Did you “know” that you wanted children or was it more of an evolution? My husband and I are trying to reach a decision on this issue and are both somewhat mixed on whether to have kids. We’re trying to work through what our lives, careers, hobbies, travels, etc would look like if we had kids. It’s an ongoing conversation that we are actively working through together – we want to reach a mutual decision since it would significantly change both our lives and our marriage.
What was your process in reaching a decision? What questions did you ask yourself? What questions did you discuss with your significant other? How did you know you wanted to have kids?
Side note: My MIL is convinced that either you “know in your soul” that you want to be a parent or you don’t want to be a parent. I think some people may know immediately but I imagine that there are lots of people out there (like me!) who struggle with this decision.
Pure Imagination
Going through this as well and will be following this thread. We have been talking about how we want to arrange our lives to reduce the inherent stress of raising children. For us, this means changing jobs/commutes so we can live close to daycare. Neither of us can fathom how we can possibly raise children with 1.5 hour (one way) commutes in the very HCOL Bay Area. There are a lot of other more personal health considerations as well due to my high-risk condition and our family histories. Then you get into the question of hobbies and what we can maintain when kids are in the picture. Basically, I go back and forth every week.
Anonymous
Unless you are fabulously wealthy and can hire all sorts of child care and household help, it is impossible to be a parent without making at least some temporary sacrifices in terms of lifestyle and hobbies. If you’re not both willing to do that, you don’t really want to be parents and you are going to be miserable and probably endanger your marriage.
Pure Imagination
That’s not at all consistent with what I hear from my friends who have managed to hold onto their hobbies (albeit not always at the same frequency or intensity), but to each their own. One thing I do know for sure is that a successful marriage and a successful parenting journey look different for everyone.
Anonome
Well, it depends on the hobby. My childfree friend who’s an enthusiastic astronomer and who travels constantly to chase eclipses across the world would definitely be cramped by a kid. The childfree friend who obsessively knits, not so much.
Anon
My parents took me total solar eclipse chasing in Hawaii when I was five. Just sayin’. Travel is different with a kid, but definitely possible, and unless you’re a single parent, you have another adult present who can wrangle the kids during the few minutes the eclipse lasts so you can focus on getting your photos. If you have a partner or grandparent help, it’s also possible to leave the kids with them for solo or couples-only vacations. Most parents I know actually travel pretty regularly without their kids. There’s certainly a little less flexibility as a parent, in that you can’t usually book a childfree trip a few days in advance when you discover a really cheap fare, but with adequate planning it’s completely possible to pursue adult-oriented hobbies.
Anon
The discussion about how much kids impede your ability to pursue hobbies (especially travel) always makes me think of When Harry Met Sally when Sally and her BF talk about how they don’t want kids because they want to be able to jet off to Rome on a moment’s notice, but then later when they’ve broken up Sally says “but the thing is… we never did jet off to Rome on a moment’s notice.” I think most people aren’t really living that sort of fantasy lifestyle even before they have kids.
Anon
I think this is a bit of an overstatement. I agree you shouldn’t have kids unless you are *willing* to make sacrifices, but you may find that you don’t have to. It really depends on your lifestyle, what your hobbies are and what your kid(s) are like. We are more affluent than many but don’t have what I would call a lot of childcare or household help (just a biweekly cleaning service, which we also had pre-kid, and then daycare for our kid) and our lives really didn’t change very much. It’s partly choices we made (being one and done, being willing to take our kid along on pretty much anything we wanted to do, being what a lot of people would probably call “boring” even before we had kids) and partly luck (good sleeper as a baby, easy-going toddler/kid), but it does happen. Comments like yours always freaked me out when I was on the fence about kids, so I think it’s important for people to know that it isn’t always the case that having a child totally upends your life.
Cd
That is helpful. I guess what I was trying to work through was how would our lives look with kids? We don’t have family who live nearby, and we do enjoy traveling fairly regularly – quick weekend trips every other month that usually involve a flight. Our family lives all over North America with extended family in Europe and Asia. I appreciate y’alls point that kids could travel with you! I know both my husband and I did and really enjoyed doing it as well!
Anon
There are certainly exceptions (I know that some special needs kids have conditions that make travel extraordinarily difficult) but for the most part, I think how much kids slow down your travel is a matter of attitude. My best friend’s kids have never been on a plane because she thinks it would be too hard to travel with kid(s). But she never even tried! My child is in preschool and has been to 12 countries. It’s not always easy and there are moments where it isn’t even much fun, but I’ve found travel with kids is always worth it. That’s not to say I wouldn’t enjoy a trip with just DH, but family travel is very rewarding and for me if the choice is family travel or no travel, family travel would win every time.
Anonymous
I don’t care how portable your child is, there is no getting around the fact that for around the first three years of your child’s life that child will need constant supervision during waking hours, and may wake you up several times per night. Sure, you can travel with an infant or toddler. But anyone who thinks that they will have the time and energy to keep up with hobbies, especially those that happen outside the home, is dreaming. My kid was extremely easy after about month 4, and neither my husband nor I had a minute to ourselves until she was in elementary school. And then we found out that child care for school-aged children is pretty much nonexistent.
Anon
My experience has actually been the opposite, that the first two years were when I had the most time to myself because they sleep a TON and have no opinions about what you do. I read over 100 books my daughter’s first year – I’ve never read that much before or since. It gets a little harder around age 2 when they have more opinions, and your schedule fills up with kids’ activities and birthday parties (although how much you let those things fill your schedule is somewhat within your control). Children that wake up several times per night for years are not the norm; most kids are sleeping through the night before 6 months old and there are options for sleep-training kids who aren’t naturally good sleepers. An infant or young toddler typically has a ~7 pm bedtime and takes at least one nap, which leaves a lot of time for hobbies in the evenings and weekend afternoons. I’m introverted so most of my hobbies are done in my house, but I had no problems doing things out of the house whenever I wanted while DH stayed home with the sleeping baby/toddler, and vice versa. DH has played a sport for ~5 hours every weekend since our daughter was born, and he gives me at least as much time off. It is hard to go out alone together unless you have a paid babysitter or family help, but we didn’t go out on dates multiple nights per week even as a childless couple.
Anonymous
I think you “know in your soul” that you want to be a parent, but you might not necessarily “know in your soul” the other way. I would never have a child unless I felt a burning desire to have one. This is why we are one and done–I desperately wanted our first for years, and never felt that longing to have a second.
Cd
Great point – I hadn’t thought of it that way.
anon for this
We struggled with the decision and hung out on the fence for years. Honestly what changed my thinking was reading the Dear Sugar Ghost Ship column. I wasn’t 100% sure about kids but I didn’t want to grow old and regret not having them. It is a Life Choice — of course I miss my childless life, especially now when the quarantine is completely draining parents. But I’m so glad that we expanded our family beyond the two of us.
No Longer Anon
Also thought of this, glad someone else said it.
Never too many shoes...
Also thought of this, glad someone else said it.
Anon
Well said. I also maintained perspective that kids become adults. That’s not to dismiss the fact my mom still worries about her three grown, married, functioning adult daughters on a daily basis, but the real hard, time intensive, no-free-moment-to-myself years are actually relatively brief in the scheme of a full lifetime. I decided I was willing to take that on, maybe even lose a little of myself in those years, knowing that I’d feel personally more fulfilled down the road having a larger family and adult children when I’m old myself.
SMC-San Diego
I second this comment. People IMO focus too much on the early years. I traveled internationally with my daughter when she was an infant and then took a break until she was 4 but otherwise traveled just as much with her as I did without her. And by the time she was 8 she was an easy travel companion who helped as much as she hindered. We took 4 international trips while she was a teenager and they were much more fun with her than they would have been without her – although more expensive and I definitely did more shopping for air fare deals than I probably would have otherwise.
Babies grow up! The years when they require watching 24/7 are fairly short. The one thing I do recommend is making sure you have help (I had my daughter through donor insemination and was always a single parent but deliberately moved closer to family so that I would have back-up; most people have a spouse.)
By all means, be realistic about the potential hit to your career and finances. I am currently paying college tuition and there are other things I could have done with that money. And if you do not want to have children then absolutely do not do it!! But I managed to maintain my heath, sanity, hobbies and friends despite being being a mom and think it was the best thing I ever did.
Cd
Thanks for the suggestion – I’ll give it a read and share it with my spouse!
Housecounsel
Count me among those who just knew, but it wasn’t always that way. If you had asked me in college or maybe even law school, I would have said I never wanted to be a parent. When I met my husband, who was 5 years older, I pretty much wanted the house in the suburbs and the white picket fence and the 2.3 kids, etc. When planning, I did think about how we could afford child care. I didn’t really think about hobbies or travel or that kind of thing. I just assumed everything would take a back seat for a while, and that was ok with me. I wonder if it matters that I was younger, late 20s. I wonder if I would have felt differently and been more ambivalent if I were in my late 30s and had established more of a kid-free lifestyle already.
It’s normal to go back and forth, but remember there will never be a perfect time.
DCR
Interesting about the age factor, because I think I’m the reverse. In college and through my 20s, I was really ambivalent about having kids. Now, in my mid-30s, I know I want kids.
For the OP, I have no advice because I’m still dating. For me, it’s one of those initial dealbreaker questions and I’m not willing to date somebody who is no on kids at this point in my life.
Anonymous
I thought about how old I wanted to be when the kids were graduating from high school and starting college and worked backwards from there. Married at 27. First pregnancy at 32, second at 34. Kids will be done college before I am scheduled to retire.
What your life looks like after kids I pumped the brakes on my career post kids but I always planned to do that – not interested in travel heavy jobs. We love to travel so we go to Europe every year since the kids were born to visit DH’s family and explore a new country. Kids are a great way to meet locals. More adventurous travel like biking or kayaking trips are on hold until young kid hits middle school and is old enough.
Give yourself some time for the parenthood journey to take longer than you plan. I was lucky and have two healthy kids from two rats pregnancies. My sister had six pregnancies to have the two kids she has now. It was a long hard journey for her.
Anon
For most of my adult life I did not want children. I actually broke up with people over this opinion (I mean, there were other reasons usually too, but this was part of it). I married my husband with the understanding between us that I likely did not want them & he was indifferent either way.
I changed my mind eventually, we now have two kids who I love, & I am overall very happy that I personally did.
What changed for me?
1) I never was a kid person. TBH, even now, I am just not the person to insist on holding someone’s new baby or get down on the floor and play with a friend’s kid for no reason. However, my brother had kids first & I loved my nephews in a way that I did not realize I would love a kid. So it opened up a whole new world of realizing what having a kid might be like.
2) Most of our friends in our friend group had kids before us, and in a lot of those couples the women are in very high powered demanding jobs. Seeing them make it work made me realize it could be done in a way that I had honestly just never really had a close, real life example of before. (I knew I could not do SAH). It’s hard, I don’t mean to sugarcoat it, but doable.
3) Here is going to be a shallow one, but here goes. Both my husband & I were pretty big partiers in our 20s, travelled a ton, FOMO was a real thing to us. I mean, I remember there being a time where I could not imagine sitting at home on a Friday or Saturday night. And I would be lying if that wasn’t a factor in thinking I didn’t want kids. But I think what I underestimated was just how much all of that would naturally slow down as we got older, & all of a sudden the idea of staying at home instead of slamming drinks was more appealing…paving the way for having a kid to not be QUITE the lifestyle change it would have been earlier. (Still a major lifestyle change, but at least sitting on the couch on a Saturday night wasn’t anymore!). Also, having kids made me realize you figure out your social priorities and make them happen. We are big concert people. I was sad heading in to having kids thinking that we would not be able to do that anymore. But we totally do make that happen – maybe at the expense of other social options, but still – b/c that we have learned is our social priority.
Good luck! I don’t mean for my story to imply that “you will change your mind”. When I didn’t want kids I hated when people said that, and I truly think there are some people that are happier without. Just giving an example of where someone changed their mind, since it seems like you are struggling with the question.
Anon
Your second point was a big one for me, and the people who so smugly say that you will “change your mind” blithely ignore how much of their own constricted view of motherhood causes women to not want to be mothers.
Quail
Longer comment in mod, but +1 to meeting kids of family and friends vs random kid. I’ve never been a “kid person” but interacting with kids of people I knew made me realize I could do it and it was kinda fun.
Anonymous
I think #2 was the game changer for me. My core group of friends from high school/college all were very “traditional” (for lack of a better word) in having kids – pregnant within a year of marriage, moved to suburbs, went part time or quit their jobs, stopped traveling, had their second kid within two years of the first, etc. They were also not that happy – the primary driver was financial stress, since they had moved to one income and had the added expense of kids. I really questioned whether I wanted kids after they started having kids.
However, I decided to expand my sample size of moms and started talking to women I knew through work about their lives with kids and it was so different and much more appealing. My grad school friends also started having kids and it was so different (and they were much happier). There are a million ways to be a mom other than the “traditional” way – you can have one kid, or live in a city not the suburbs, or travel with your kids, or your spouse can be the stay-at-home parent, or you can move to a new place altogether that better suits your vision for having kids. I was personally very blinded by the “traditional” way and felt like I would need to change every single thing about my life to have kids. That’s not true – I just needed role models for different ways to organize your life around children.
My personal situation has a sad end – due to a major medical event, I likely will not be able to have children and adopting will be challenging. So I probably will end up without kids. But this process also helped me realize there are many ways to build a great life without kids so I am less stressed about that than I otherwise would have been.
Cd
Thank you so much for sharing your story! The process you went through rings very true for me! I have several of my close friends from college who have moved into stay at home mom roles (and who are enjoying it so far!) but I never envisioned that for myself. The only women who have kids and work who I know closely are the partners I work with. It’s a female heavy firm, so I guess I could talk to like my mentor and get her thoughts on what balancing a career and a family looks like? I will think a bit more about perhaps a peer or colleague who may be a good connection to talk through those types of challenges!
Anon
Same.
I found that the women who had kids young often are the ones who get really, really invested in Motherhood; my lawyer friends do not define themselves by their (very, very loved) offspring. “You can’t understand because you aren’t a mother” versus “It’s a lot of fun to take Emma to the beach with us.”
Veronica Mars
I knew I wanted to be a mom when I was volunteering with young kids and a little girl asked to come sit in my lap. So cute, my heart just melted and I knew I’d want kids of my own one day. Maybe that’s not typical, a “lightbulb” moment, but that’s what happened for me. In terms of planning with my husband (he expressed he wanted kids early on in our dating relationship and we went through a family planning exercise in pre marital counseling), it’s more of a question of when. This pandemic has pushed our timeline back considerably. I don’t want to be pregnant during the pandemic, period. I’m willing to wait until 2021-2022 if needed, I’m young enough. But we’ll see how this unfolds.
Anon
I did not want kids until my 30s, which was largely driven by not wanting to have kids and put them through the cluster that was my childhood. Eventually, I figured out that I am able to build a home life that is different and does not have to pass on the dysfunction to another generation. My husband and I have one child; he very much wanted to be a father.
As for hobbies, etc: life ebbs and flows. When you talk about travel and hobbies, the question is, how often do you NEED to do those things in order to be happy? If you did not travel to Europe for five years and went every other year instead of every year thereafter, would you feel deprived? Are your hobbies time-intensive in a way that is not compatible with being a mother and having a career, or can they be incorporated into your new life?
Some of these questions are also about how many kids to have. Life is a lot easier with one kid, and not just because daycare costs half as much and you’re buying three, not four or five or six, plane tickets. You can incorporate one child into your life; two and up, things revolve more around the kids.
And that (expletive) about “knowing in your soul” – there’s just a class of women who think that being mothers makes them better than everyone else and better than people who “do mother” wrong.
Quail
Basically, we imagined our lives in 5 years, 10 years, 29 years. Did we imagine kids? We “made” decisions and sat with them. For me, it became pretty apparent that I was not comfortable with the “no kids” imagined futures (and this exercise also led to good convos about the lengths we would go if fertility proved a problem). Same for my husband. Then it just became a question of when, and that came down to “now or in three years” due to my career. “Now“made more sense, and luckily we were able to conceive easily.
But the most important factor was seeing our good friends have kids and still live their lives. We had great parenting role models to follow and that made a big difference for us. It also meant that we had an existing support network and social life that was changing to include kids.
We also agreed that we would not expect to have two kids. Going in with the mindset that a second was not obligatory took a lot of the weight off. (We now have a second, with 5 years in between).
Finally, I may have snapped at my MIL and told her (not truthfully, obv) we had decided we weren’t having kids when she pressed the issue one time too many. That also ironically helped because we felt like we were making the decision independent of that pressure. (As a side note, do NOT make any decisions re kids based on how involved you anticipate the grandparents being. There are no guarantees, and I think first time grandparents can expect babies to be born three year olds and therefore check out for the baby stage. YMMV of course. )
Anonymous
Someone said to me “you might regret having kids, but you might regret not having them more”. And as someone who waited until my late 30’s to even try (due to this indecision) I can say I have never regretted having them.
Baby Q
No, I don’t think you “know in your soul”. I wasn’t even sure about it the day my first was born. I remember thinking that! But, I quickly became “sure” as my love for her grew.
Anonymous
So much this. My son is about to turn one. He is amazing. But I will always, always clearly remember my husband asking me, at four weeks postpartum, “Isn’t our baby so much fun?” I had the biggest WTF? expression on my face and said “no. he is not fun. I am not even sure right now that I like anything about being a mom.” (I was diagnosed with pretty severe with PPD, and things got a million and a half times better when the baby started smiling and sleeping through the night, and once I started PPD treatment).
Also, my husband is an only child, and we plan to only have this one child. Also, while I kind of always wanted to be a mom, I think I could really only be a mom with my husband because of his support, the balance we share of the “to do list of life” and the fact that when we started talking about having kids, my husband shared some very, very specific visions for parenting and what he hoped for our baby. We know that it may not turn out that way, but the visions were pretty specific and it made me realize that my husband fully wanted to dive into being a parent 100%. It wasn’t just a nebulous idea for him.
Finally, a poster on here recently had a really insightful comment about having more than one child. A posted said she always envisioned multiple children because she had 2 or 3 siblings (can’t remember exactly) and that her mom had been this awesome mom, but the posted wasn’t so sure if shew as going to have more than one. The commentator said something to the effect of “it’s okay to have only one, or two and not several kids like your mom did. Did your mom have the same job you have? Did your mom live in the same area with the same cost of living you have? Face the same challenges? Have the same support?” It was very reassuring to me – my mom was a SAHM mom and I have two brothers. Somehow, my parents owned a beautiful home, sent three kids to K-12 private school and paid for 3 separate private college tuitions, we went on multiple vacations a year, and always got what we wanted from Santa under the Christmas tree. I really don’t think that I could do the same for more than one child. The world is just different today.
Anon
Yeah I think it’s BS that “you know in your soul.” I was adamant that I was going to be childless by choice until I met my husband (although I met him when I was 24, so it’s not like I spent most of my adult life thinking I would be childless). My husband always wanted kids, but kind of in a vague well-thats-what-married-people-do-in-their-30s way. When I met him and fell in love with him, it was immediately obvious to me that he would be an amazing father and so that started a shift in my thinking about kids. Both my husband and I have older parents (mid-late 30s when we were born), so having kids in our 20s was not really on the radar for either of us. We started talking more seriously about it around 30/31. I didn’t feel ready, and wanted to do some more travel, so we delayed at that time. Right around my 32nd birthday I just suddenly felt ready so we started trying and were lucky to conceive quickly. Before we started trying, we had discussed the idea that we would try ‘naturally’ (I dislike this term but can’t think of a better word) but wouldn’t pursue interventions like IVF. I’m not sure I would have been able to stick with that though, because once we started trying I really wanted to get pregnant. Fortunately it didn’t come to that, but I’m sure my husband would have been supportive if we’d needed to pursue IVF (I was the one who was really against it because I felt like it would be too great a toll on my body). My daughter is 3 now and it’s just amazing to be a mom, absolutely the best decision I ever made. We have a really fantastic balance with one and she really didn’t disrupt our lives very much. Neither of us really has any desire for a second (although I’ll admit the pandemic is making me rethink that because months of no interaction with other kids has been very hard on her, and who knows how long this mess will go on), but am so glad I got to have the one and experience being a mom and raising a little person.
cbackson
I highly recommend the Dear Sugar essay, “The Ghost Ship that Didn’t Carry Us” for thinking through this decision (or any similar decision, or for dealing with regret over the consequences of a decision, or just generally bc it’s great).
Ses
that’s an amazing essay.
Ellen
Agreed. I wanted babies since I was 18, but never found the right guy to marry, so none of it has happened yet. But since I am in my late 30’s, my time is limited and this virus hasn’t helped as no one can see me in my apartement. FOOEY! I hope to be able to find the opportunity, mabye at Whole Foods or Fairways, where men often shop for food alone. I try and stay away from men who are shopping with women, as they are likely living with them during social isolation.
Anonymous
DH and I met in college. We got married young (25) and had our first at when I was 29 and he was 30. When we were seriously dating/talking about the future, we always knew we wanted to have “a family” together- to us, that meant kids. I knew I wanted >1 kid (I am one of four). DH knew he wanted “kids, eventually.” We didn’t really ever seriously talk numbers–though one time DH threw out 4 and I said “you’re nuts.” We had a lot of “us” time before we had kids and while we didn’t feel ready to give up our DINK lifestyle, we knew if we wanted 2 or 3 kids we ought to get started.
Now we have 3 kids in elem school in a big house in suburbia with a minivan, and I shuttle the kids to dance and swim and art and DH coaches soccer and lax on the weekends. It was an evolution to get here from our 1BR apartment in the city. This was not my dream, but it is the reality of having all these kids. Who, by the way, are all being “homeschooled”* while DH and I try and work remotely from the basement without driving each other insane.
*Vaguely supervised, doing a lot of reading, playing outside A LOT, and probably getting too much screen time.
Anonome
I knew since pre-school that I didn’t want children. Husband was leaning towards kids, but ultimately decided he wanted us as a unit more. Decades later, he has said that he now realizes that it was societal expectations and family programming that made him feel like having children is just automatically expected.
Unlike a previous poster, I would rather regret not having kids than regret having them. I really doubt I will, since I’ve always been a decisive person, but the 0.0001% chance that I will regret it is better than creating a child that isn’t wanted.
In my observation, people on the fence seem to have a hard time visualizing their life years out, and parenting fills that hole in an automated way. What do you want to do with your adulthood? If you don’t have something that you crave doing, that you can’t wait to get to, then that question can be harder to answer.
Among my childfree friends, I also see an increased desire to create compared to parents. Painters, musicians, and writers are heavily represented in my friend group. I think every person inherently wants to make something, and for some, that drive leads them to make people. For others, that drive is directed in more artistic ways.
My opinion is that you SHOULD desperately desire children to make them. If you don’t feel that need, then I’d suggest mentorship or volunteering with children instead.
Anon
this is not meant to be judgmental – but how did you know in preschool that you didn’t want kids?
CountC
I am not the OP, and I don’t remember the exact age that I knew I didn’t want kids, but it was when I was young. I enjoyed babsitting and all that, but just knew that I never wanted my own (I am 40 now and that has not changed). I can’t explain or pinpoint the exact reason, it was just something I always knew and always knew I wouldn’t waver from.
Anonome
I was an advanced reader for my age (but terrible at math, so no baby genius stuff going on or anything) and I was really bored in preschool, because it was mostly about teaching the alphabet and phonemes. I wandered around the room helping other kids with their letters, and the teacher told my mom that I was so sweet and patient, and I would make such a great mother someday. I was immediately disgusted by the idea, and felt panicked and sad that I would have to raise a child. It wasn’t for another few years that I realized children are optional.
Anon
I was adamant in preschool that I did not want kids. I was an only child and I disliked babies intensely from the time I was about 3 or so. I was pretty much the only girl in my middle school class who didn’t babysit or work as a mother’s helper. But I ended up changing my mind and having a child, and have zero regrets. To this day though, I don’t really care for babies that aren’t my own or the babies of very close friends, and when we travel we deliberately avoid things like theme parks that are likely to be filled with kids who aren’t our own. I think you can not like kids generally but still like your own, although of course if you have a kid you have to be tolerant of other people’s kids, at least in certain situations.
Anon
I knew in preschool. I guess I thought of babies and children as other people (makes sense since I was a preschooler!), and it didn’t make sense to me to want other people as something to have? I never played with dolls at all. I didn’t enjoy babysitting and usually spent the time teaching the kids something.
Clementine
So, before I was ready, I had to think about what my life would be like without kids. And honestly – pretty great. I like my job, love my husband, have a great dog… it was lovely.
But then… I thought about it with kids. And to me, I wanted that path. Yeah, it was messier, but also… ‘richer’. And I think that journeying on both paths and having this be my affirmative decision has made me happier for it.
Many people I know who complain about their kids – I’m talking ‘only complain’ not ‘occasionally vent’ either 1) had kids because they felt like they were ‘supposed’ to, 2) had a ‘happy surprise’ that they didn’t like the timing or the actual kid, or 3) just complain as a language.
Many days, parenting is a slog. I’ve noticed that people tend to tell you about the hard stuff, but I think more people should also add mundane nice things… like this morning, my 4 year old told me that cuddling with Mommy in bed is the best part of his day.
Old me really thought about the things that I was losing – and not gonna lie, sometimes jealous of my (aggressively) child-free sister and her leisurely Saturdays doing 10 mile runs and going to long brunch. But… my version is 8 miles with a double stroller followed by bringing my Starbucks to my favorite playground (#preCOVIDme). I wish I could tell old me how much I would be gaining.
But again: I think I’m happy because I wanted it. I had my 20’s to make poor decisions and… I don’t worry that I didn’t spend enough nights partying until the bars closed. Been there, done that. Don’t let others force you into a decision either way.
Anon
I was pretty set on having kids but went through some waffling from time to time. My husband was pretty sure he did not want them. I got to my late 20s and just felt like, I don’t want to be sitting here in 20 years regretting that I didn’t have a child. I always loved spending time with my younger cousins, and living out the rest of my life without kids wasn’t something I wanted to do. My husband was still pretty reluctant but once we started trying, he got invested pretty quickly.
It took us over 2 years and going through fertility treatment to get pregnant and then I had a very rough pregnancy and we almost lost our son just before he was born. By the time we brought him home from the hospital (after a very dramatic situation where he was born almost a month early via c-section), I knew I wasn’t going to go through that again. And my doctors were pessimistic about my chances of being able to go through another pregnancy and have a healthy baby and be healthy myself, so my husband was definitely thumbs down on having another. So we just have the one, and while I sometimes have regret about not having another, I know it was the right choice for us.
I will say, and this has been discussed here before, that having one child is, I believe, a great idea if people like kids and want kids but don’t want their entire life to be kid-focused. I didn’t originally plan to have an only child but it is working out pretty well. We have the experiences of being a parent, and our kid gets the benefit of a lot of attention (and he has special needs so that’s important). Our lives don’t revolve around our kid and we have time and money to do lots of things that the whole family enjoys.
I have friends who have kids and friends who never had them. The ones who never had them did not necessarily make a conscious choice not to have kids, it was more that they made a conscious choice not to try to have them, if that makes sense. It wasn’t so much, we are not having kids and so I am getting a vasectomy/tubal ligation; it was more – if it happens it happens and if it doesn’t that’s okay too, and then time goes by and biology takes care of the issue. I don’t know anyone personally who really really wanted kids and didn’t have them because if they wanted them, they had them regardless of how that happened (adoption, donor, surrogate, etc.). I know several people who were like “eh, maybe” and didn’t have kids and don’t seem to regret it.
Anonymous
I love this perspective on one kid. I posted above about having 3 and as a result, living in suburbia driving a minivan. That does not have to be you (the greater you)! Just have one :). We still lived in a 1BR condo downtown when I had my first and we might be in a 2BR downtown with a kid in private school now if we’d only had the one.
Senior Attorney
I’m the mom of an only and it’s been great for me. I will also say that in my experience the worst case scenario is WAY worse with kids than without: Your heart can be broken in many more pieces, in many more ways, as a parent than as a non-parent.
Senior Attorney
Not, I hasten to add, that my heart has been broken as a parent. But I’ve seen it up close including with my parents and my brother.
Anon
Yep, I’m one and done as well (partly for health reasons, although less serious than yours) and fully agree with this. You get all the fun of being parents and raising a human but it’s so much less work and leaves way more time for the adults to do their own thing. And we’re a lot more financially comfortable than we’d be with two kids.
Carmen Sandiego
We are childfree by choice. For me, I never wanted kids; even as a young child, didn’t like playing “house” or baby dolls, etc. I’ve just never had an interest. Once my now-husband and I started dating and talking marriage, he was of the mindset “I would be fine with kids, but it’s more important to be with you, so whatever you want.”Now we’ve been together a decade and as we’ve gotten older, we’ve talked about it a few times, and we just have never *wanted* kids. For me personally, I don’t want to have to take care of and raise a child, and I just feel like if you’re committing to that, you should really want to do it. (If I did have a kid, I would be 100%, all-in, and I would be a great mom, I have no doubts about that. I just don’t want to.) I honestly think the only reason that I’ve truly considered whether or not to have kids is because of the societal pressure and expectations that all couples have kids (especially in the south).
Anonymous
This pretty much sums up my viewpoint, as well.
Anon
I’ve known that it was something I want very much deep down and that has at times been hard for me to admit. Especially in my last relationship with an ex who I think probably did not want kids. The conversation was always very wishy-washy and it really made me question myself! With my current partner, the issue of kids came up very, very early. It helped that we talked about it in a way that was very low pressure (obviously on our third date we weren’t discussing whether *we* would have kids) and I felt much more comfortable saying that yeah, that’s what I want. He did and does feel the same way, so as our relationship became serious it’s something we’ve been able to talk about in an easy way.
Anon
I went with basic biology I guess. I spent most of my 20s thinking I never wanted kids and then boom, I wanted a baby. I would describe it as a primal longing. I started talking to my husband about my shocking change of heart and he felt the same way. A lot of heartbreak later, still no regrets about becoming a mother. It’s literally what I was built to do, evolutionarily speaking, so it’s not all that weird that most of us end up doing it.
Anonymous
I always knew I didn’t want kids and I have never regretted not having a child. It is a conversation that I had with everyone I dated before getting serious with anyone. So I knew long before getting married that DH did not want children either. We are god parents to a bunch of our friend’s children, which is more than enough for us. I did always want a dog — and got a dog as soon as we got married. Another conversation I always had when dating.
I think some people know and some don’t. My best friend always wanted kids and has a beautiful family with three amazing kids and he recently confided in me that he regrets having kids, which is just so sad for all involved. I am sure the kids will never know it or feel it because he is an amazing dad. It just makes me sad.
Anon
As I kid I assumed I would have children some day because that is what society told me adults do, but as I began to be able to think critically I realized that I didn’t want kids and they would not provide a net benefit to me, my marriage or the world. Here are the factors that ultimately resulted in my husband and I both seeking sterilization.
1. I was not willing to harm my career
2. I did not want to reduce my earnings
3. I couldn’t stomach irreparable harm to my body
4. I did not want damage to my marriage
5. I value hobbies, free time and travel
6. Having a small environmental foot print is very important to me
7. I want to maximize the level and degree of my education, so always learning
8. I wasnt willing to compromise on home purchasing priorities
So basically everything I value is incompatible with child rearing
Anon
It’s absolutely your right to be childfree, but most, if not all, of what you list is not incompatible with child-rearing and it’s kind of insulting to parents to suggest we all have bad marriages, terrible careers and “irreparably” damaged bodies.
Anon
I also think it’s profoundly unethical to reproduce on a dying planet but I knew that would cause anger so I left that out.
Anon
I mean, society would cease to exist if everyone had that attitude. There are obviously huge environmental issues, but having no future generations of humans is not the solution to it. If you’re a member of a couple and you have one or two children, you’re not contributing to population growth. I tend to agree with you that more than two is irresponsible from an environmental standpoint.
Anon
Just to come to Anon’s 12:55 defense a little… you are twisting her words around a bit. She didn’t say everyone who has kids will – for example – have a terrible career. She said it could possibly harm her career. We don’t know what she does, and I think it would be intellectually dishonest to say that having kids wouldn’t harm any given career out there. Extreme example to make a point, what if both she and her husband are investment bankers for a big bank – the kind that are expected to work until 2 am on the regular & drop everything on a weekend for a call. That would be nearly impossible to keep up & bring a child into the mix, so one of them would have to take a step back & “harm” their career. Maybe you could argue they could find something else equal to or better than that for them that is compatible, but that’s not certain.
This probably isn’t exactly the case here, but there are a lot of scenarios between the one I painted & assuming kids won’t harm anyone’s career in any way that could be true.
(Full disclosure, I have kids & a decently demanding job – I make mine work, but acknowledge that’s not going to be 100% true for 100% of careers).
Anon
Correct. For anyone reading, this is a pretty skewed, melodramatic view of what parenting does to people. I have been married 20+ years and my husband and I are still happy; I have a great job earning close to six figures and I do interesting work and am respected in my field – I am at the top of my game in my profession for my area; I got a master’s degree when my son was little; I live in a beautiful home, our dream house with amazing features and comfort, that I just love to pieces; I have great, close friendships (20-30 years for some of them) and spend time with my friends regularly; I have traveled the world and continue to travel, with and without my child; I have a couple of hobbies and have time to pursue them. It sounds to me like the poster here maybe isn’t great at reasoning out cost vs. benefit or maybe figuring out how to make things work when conditions aren’t her absolute ideal. Please don’t read this post and think having kids means giving up everything she listed because it absolutely does not.
anon
But she didn’t suggest that. She is listing things that are known risks of childbirth/child rearing, not stating that everyone who has kids will experience them. Her post isn’t about you.
Patricia Gardiner
My thinking evolved a lot from definitely not wanting kids (in college) through wanting to become a mother somewhat when we got married (but thinking I would never do IVF or anything like that), to doing 2 years of infertility treatments (fortunately successful). And I am so, so grateful every day (yes, even now with a toddler at home all day every day).
I do have hobbies I love that have had to take second priority now, but… that’s kind of a natural evolution in life, your interests are not always going to be the same, you know? Now it doesn’t feel at all like a sacrifice to give up (say) my beloved Saturday rock climbing to spend time with my toddler, because the time spent with him is so much more joyful (even if frustrating sometimes!). I think it was tough to imagine ahead of time how it would feel to have this lifestyle change, because beforehand you can picture all the negatives of not being able to sleep in every weekend day and not being able to go out to the bars without planning ahead, but it’s harder to really imagine the rewards of playing silly games with a giggling little one that you get to see learn and develop every day.
Of course everyone has different priorities and paths, and it is not for everyone. I think you have to picture your life in 20 years and think about whether you want kids to be a part of it.
Anon
I agree with this. I think when you’re childless the thought of giving up hobby X sounds like a big sacrifice, and I fully understand that. But virtually all the parents I know find that time with their kid is so much more rewarding than their old hobbies, that in practice it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice at all. That’s not to say parenting is never frustrating or exhausting, but I have never really had a moment where I think to myself “Ugh I’m so resentful I’m not scuba diving in Belize right now.” Being with my kid is more fun than anything I did pre-kid, as cheesy as that sounds.
anon
My journey was a bit different because I’ve known as long as I can remember that I wanted to be a mom, and in all of my serious relationships, I made sure my SOs also wanted kids. Unfortunately, those relationships all seemed to fail for one reason or another, and in fact the last rel’ship I had before I met my husband broke off because that ex told me he wanted kids, but in the end decided he didn’t. So I made it pretty clear to my DH from day one of dating that if he didn’t want kids, he needed to tell me stat b/c I was about ready to be an SMBC (I was 37 when we met). My DH was never gung ho about having kids, but he knew how important it was to me and he actually tells me constantly (and our son lol) how grateful he is that I was so insistent about it because he gets so much happiness out of it. I’m now pregnant with #2 (and final) and feel very very lucky that I have a healthy son and hopefully another one on the way. As far as reasons for wanting them – at core, I always felt like I had so much love to give, and wanted to share that with a child, because I knew it was a unique kind of love. But I also wanted the privilege and honor of raising (hopefully) a kind, productive human being who would make the world a better place in some small way. Of all of the various “big” decisions/choices in my life, I can unequivocally say that my son has brought me more happiness than I ever could have anticipated (this is a big deal coming from someone like me, who has frequently had high expectations of things and constantly felt let down). Just seeing his sweet face in the morning, or hearing him say “turtall?” when he plays with his plastic turtle in his kiddie pool makes my heart soar (again, as someone with a cold, dead heart, this is a big deal). Good luck in your decision!
Anon
I have a rare genetic disorder that impacted my life a lot. I am fully functional adult and my disorder is cosmetic.From the time I can remember, my thoughts were always about not having children as I didn’t want to pass this on to them. It was very sad and depressing thoughts.I was missing those kids who were not even born and the experience of being pregnant, giving birth etc. I was trying to make peace with the situation and deal with the fact that a huge chunk of my life will be missing.
I am 36 now, after some research (well a lot intermittently, if you consider failed search over the years) I found out the gene that causes my disorder. I went through the test and confirmed the disease causing mutation. Now, we have an appointment with fertility clinic tomorrow to discuss IVF with PGT-M. This is the first time in my life I am feeling hopeful about having children at all. It is unbelievable for me after all these years of trying to accept a life with no children. I am overcome with lots of very varied emotions when I think about the path it has taken to reach this point. Hopefully, things will work out well from here on.
ANON
Sending you positive energy!
Anon
Thank you.. :-)
Anon
I really like kids. I was a teacher for a while, and I also helped raise my 6 youngest siblings. I would never want to be a stay at home parent and find pregnancy viscerally horrible. Basically, I think I could get into being a dad…but not a mom.
As it is, I’m childfree. I think it’s much better to regret not having kids than to regret having them. I also think it’s better to change your mind and adopt/foster/have a geriatric pregnancy than to have kids early and struggle for years financially and emotionally.
I think if I was going to have a kid, I would want to bring that kid into the best environment possible. For me, that would mean a decent amount of financial security, an established community, parents who are emotionally solid and good at working together but also capable of caring for the kid on their own, and an intense, burning desire to have a child (rather than a vague sense of “this is what 30-somethings do”).
Anon
I’m single and mid 30’s so it’s unlikely I’ll meet someone and have children. I always thought I’d have kids but I found the biggest deterrent has been other women complaining about it and seeing how men don’t step it up. If I found a man I wanted to have kids with, then I would but most seem….worthless. This isn’t to say that there aren’t great men out there, but they are few and far between. It still seems like women bear the brunt of the child care and that’s not the kind of relationship I want.
Anonymous
It’s a tough decision make in the abstract by weighing pros and cons. The downsides of having children are really easy to quantify, and the upsides are almost impossible for anyone to convey to you so you kind of have to have your own children to understand what’s great about it. Even if you put “joy” in the pros column, how do you weigh that against “less vacations” in the cons column? I’d never advise someone to ignore strong feelings that they don’t want children, but if you’re on the fence, I think the advantage should go to having rather than not having children in recognition of the fact that it’s hard to quantify some of the pros.
Do you have any friends or colleagues with children? When you see or hear about their experiencing parenting their children is your reaction “We never want kids!” or “We’d do X differently”? I think if it’s the latter, you’re probably already in the “we probably want to have kids category” and your next conversation is about whether you’re emotionally, physically and financially ready to add to your family.
Annonn
I asked this in the moms site but didn’t get any answers, so cross posting here–has anyone tried the mommastrong program? Were you happy with the results, and how long did it take before you saw improvements? I have diastisis recti and lingering pelvic girdle pain, and though I’d like to go to a PT, I obviously can’t right now. At the same time, I don’t want to do anything to make it worse.
MommaStrong Fan
Yes! I love MommaStrong! I didn’t have any diagnosed issues – just felt crappy and out of shape and sometimes peed when I sneezed. I started seeing improvements in all three areas within three weeks. I’ve been pretty hit or miss with doing the fifteen minutes every day, but I still continue to see differences. For example, being able to run my pre-pregnancy speed in a 5K when I had only ran maybe three times in the three months beforehand. I also love the overall messaging of the group, from the daily emails to Courtney’s discussions to the Facebook page. “Win ugly.” “She did it anyway.” “Begin again.”
As far as the PT goes, I know some members have said in the Facebook group that their PT’s advice lined up with Courtney’s recommendations. There’s also a MommaStrong-hired PT who answers questions in the Facebook group. There are lots of introductory videos that sort of assume you have DR and other issues, and talk about the importance of form. She avoids the major stressors – the workouts never have crunches or sit-ups in them, for example. There are also all sort of “Fix-Me” videos that help with different pain points–I had a ton of shoulder pain, for example, when my kid went through a clingy phase, and Fix Me really, really helped.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Annonn
thank you! this is so helpful! I’m not on Facebook, would that make it less useful to me?
MommaStrong Fan
All of the videos are on the MommaStrong website, but most of the discussion between members is in a private MommaStrong Facebook group. There are also daily emails and I think you can still sign up for an accountability buddy/group that chooses how to communicate. I don’t think you could access the Facebook group without a Facebook account. You could always make a burner account and use it just for the group. But certainly the workouts themselves–during which Courtney talks about the different MommaStrong philosophies–don’t require Facebook.
CHL
I also loved Mommastrong. I find Courtney to be a little annoying but that in no way takes away from the quality of the programs and videos. I didn’t use the Facebook group for a long time – it’s not essential.
kk
This top is cute but would be terrible for video zoom calls- the stripes tend to distort on camera leading to a really trippy moving visual effect!
Ask me how I know…
Senior Attorney
Haha thanks for the tip!
Grocery store shopping frequency
For those of you who have managed to shop weekly or bi-weekly, tell me your secrets. I am maybe a city person who shops daily. I am down to slightly less than weekly. But veggies and meat — do you just freeze them? And hope to not lose power (we do periodically)? And I have a kid who lives on bananas. I am maybe just bad at this. And maybe family of 4 / one fridge is the problem (like my grandmothers put things up and had deep freezes and canned).
anon for this
Buy things with different shelf lifes. We eat fruits and veg with nearly every meal, and we shop about every 2 weeks. Fruits: bag of apples, bag of clementines, 2-3 lbs of grapes, strawberries, blueberries, bananas that aren’t quite ripe yet, whatever looks good. Then we eat the berries first (and freeze if they start to go bad for use later in muffins or smoothies). Eat bananas when they are ripe. The apples, clementines, and grapes will all last pretty much the whole time. I’m looking forward to peaches and watermelons but they will have a shorter shelf life.
Veg: Carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, broccoli, mushrooms, green peppers, lettuce, tomato, spinach. The last three are the most tender so they get eaten first. We try to eat the mushrooms and peppers in the first week. The rest will last several weeks in the fridge (or potatoes in cool storage in the basement). We also have a good stock of frozen vegetables that we can roast (you can put frozen veggies directly in the oven).
The trick is that you have to be flexible to eating what’s good/what needs to be eaten. Pandemic pantry doesn’t support eating the same thing every day.
anonshmanon
+1 to all of this. Also: I’ve done a bit more research on how to store things properly, so they last longer. My carrots would get all dry and rubbery when I just chucked them in the fridge. Storing them in a bag of water works better. Still need to improve my broccoli game (it either develops yellow dry spots or mold) and I am learning to give meal planning priority to asparagus. My parsley and spring onions are sitting in a jar of water. Berries last longer after a vinegar rinse. My newest trick is moving avocados and bananas to the fridge when they get ripe but I’m not ready to eat them. The bananas will turn brown on the outside, but they will slow down the ripening inside. Cabbage can also hang out in your fridge for a looong time while you eat your more perishable things first.
We don’t eat that much meat, so I will usually buy a bag of frozen chicken breast and it will last 2 months or so. You can throw meat in the freezer, also processed meat products like salami, bacon, hot dogs and bratwurst all freeze beautifully.
anonshmanon
adding more thoughts: extra bread goes in the freezer, well wrapped.
I’ve been seriously examining my dairy use anyway since December, so I was researching more alternatives and trying stuff out. I now buy oatmilk instead of dairy, and swapped margarine for butter in most places (tried to do the very buttery cinnamon roll recipe with margarine, but will go with a margarine/butter mix in the future because it didn’t turn out quite right). Oatmilk has a fantastic shelf life. I am still using dairy cream, although I substitute coconut milk occasionally. I plan to freeze part of the cream after my next shopping trip so I can take my time using it up. What substitutions work is of course a very individual decision, but generally the vegan options tend to have a longer shelf life.
Anonymous
Bananas last a week, many fruits and vegetables do. I do freeze meat and also buy frozen meat and fish. And planning! I can only do this by having a meal plan.
Anon
I shop weekly. It’s just me and my husband and I have a car, which makes things easier. I meal prep and freeze what meat I don’t use – by the end of the week I’m slightly past the recommended time for eating leftovers, but I haven’t gotten sick yet. Ive never been into raw veggies, so they’re also usually cooked and reheated (without too much of an issue, but they lose their good roasting crispness).
Fruit, I buy in stages (some underripe, some half way, some ripe) so they can last a bit longer. With kids I’m sure it’s tough but some fruits also last longer than others (apples last forever).
Anonymous
Pre-pandemic, I did a big weekly grocery run plus a quick midweek stop for fresh fruit. If you are shopping weekly, you have to plan your menu to use up the more perishable items earlier in the week and rely on sturdier items later in the week. I usually froze the meat for the second half of the week. We don’t eat a lot of bread, so all bread lived in the freezer. Groceries for a family of three, including a husband who eats like a teenage boy, would regularly fill the fridge and freezer to capacity.
Re. bananas, if your child will eat them in a very-ripe state, you can get by for a week on one bunch of almost-ripe bananas and another bunch of green bananas, preferably not stored right next to each other (the more ripe ones will hasten the ripening of the green ones).
When the pandemic hit, we bought a second fridge for the garage. We had already been considering it to relieve some of the crowding from the weekly shopping and because we used to entertain quite a bit. If you’re going to do this be sure it’s garage-rated, or the freezer will not hold its temperature in the winter.
Panda Bear
Grocery shopping used to be one of my favorite chores and I used to go (to various specialty stores plus the regular grocery store) about 3-4x a week. Now food shopping is frustrating and stressful.
Anyway – the key thing for me is fairly detailed meal planning. Figure out exactly what we will cook, on which day, and what we need. Then when I get home, I freeze any meats that will be cooked later in the week. We eat the more delicate fruits & veggies sooner, and keep the sturdier ones for later in the week. For the most part this lets me shop once a week now.
Cat
We live in a city and shop once a week. Honestly, at the end of the week, rather than eating a big fresh salad for lunch or as a side at dinner, for those meals we are heating up Steamfresh veggies or we planned ahead with a sturdier fresh veg like Brussels sprouts or string beans.
For meat, similarly, we make time-sensitive entrees (like a steak dinner or fish dish) the day or next day after shopping; otherwise we batch-prepare things like meatballs, burgers, slow cooker BBQ, etc. so at the end of the week we are pulling the protein portion of the entree out of the freezer as well. (Burgers we freeze raw and then defrost as needed; other stuff is already cooked so just needs reheating.)
pugsnbourbon
This is very similar to what we do. Chicken and salad for the first couple nights, pork tenderloin plus steamed veggies for the next night or two, tacos made with ground turkey (previously frozen), then baked sweet potatoes or pasta salad and then hey it’s shopping day again.
anon
We live in the city with a 3/4 size fridge. We typically shop once a week during normal times and now are doing once every 2 weeks. We’ve shifted our food a bit to longer lasting things: green beans (1-2 weeks), broccoli (~1 week, maybe a little more), carrots (multiple weeks), apples (multiple weeks for firm types), sweet potatoes (1-2 months), potatoes (1-2 months). We’ve basically stopped having leafy greens, which we find taste stale quickly. We buy meat and freeze it in small portions day of purchase. We are roasting vegetables for the most part or sauteing green beans, which seems to help hide any perception that they’re at the end of their shelf life. We are adding a lot more shelf-stable fillers, e.g., if normally we would have sausage and onions and broccoli, we cut the portions of those to half and make rice to go with them. Frozen meatballs + spaghetti have been our hit meal of the quarantine. Yogurt for breakfast .
Honestly the hardest shift has been that since we walk to the grocery store, now both of us need to go shopping together since two weeks is too much groceries for one of us to carry back alone.
PolyD
There’s a blog I read from time to time, Frugal Girl dot com, who in normal times only shops about once a week for her family of 4-5. She’s recently had posts about how to do less frequent big grocery shops if you don’t normally do this. She talks about using things in order, like anon for this at 11:14 said, and also ideas for using up little bits of things.
Carmen Sandiego
We do every two weeks, maybe longer. For me, it’s a combination of meal planning and also choosing things with longer shelf life. So I might get ground meat for tacos, a roast for a pot roast, etc. and then freeze whatever meat I’m not making that day, and then cook the dishes in order of expiration date. So, tacos would be one of the last meals before going back to the store, because shells, cheese, frozen meat keep longer. I plan meals with fresher veggies for the days right after the shop. I also try to buy certain fruits/veggies that aren’t ripe yet so that I can have them a little longer out from the shop-day.
anne-on
Planning is key, and learning what fruits and veggies ‘last’ longer. I used to go mid-week for a shop to top off our berries/bananas (my kid loooooves berries) but that’s just not feasible now. Bananas and berries go first, and then right before I shop we usually are eating oranges/apples/grapefruit and carrots/peppers/snap peas/cauliflower/broccoli. Lettuce, herbs, cucumbers, and tomatoes all go pretty quickly (though you can stick your herbs in water to help them stay fresh). It helps if your family will accept frozen fruit or compote (ie – I’ll boil down berries with lemon zest and a tiny bit of sugar for compote – great stirred into oatmeal, or frozen berries in a smoothie). I also try REALLY hard to ‘use up’ all our produce – so I plan for stews, soup, quiche, or chili on the latter part of the week to use the ‘meh’ looking stuff before buying new. Crisps or crumbles are also a great way to use up bruised or wrinkly apples, and loaf cakes or muffins are where my extra eggs/yogurt/citrus go.
I freeze all my meat aside from what I’ll cook in the next day or two – I also usually only buy one or two night’s worth of ‘butcher’ meat because I find the shrink wrapped stuff freezes better. FWIW – the ‘ultra processed’ milk stays longer, so I’ll buy that (even though its $$) so I can maybe stretch grocery visits to every 10 days (milk and half and half are the true ‘must shop TODAY’ items in our home).
cat socks
I shop once a week. I come up with a meal plan for the week so I know specifically what to buy. Fruit and veggies stay fresh for a week or longer if stored properly. Meats get frozen or kept in the fridge to use the same day or next day.
LaurenB
Well, yeah, of course I freeze meat (well, mostly chicken and turkey, we’re not big beef eaters). What else would you do with meat?
Anon
We don’t freeze meat. We use it within the “use by/freeze by” date on the package which is usually one week.
Anonymous
We don’t freeze meat either unless the store only has a big pack of chicken or whatever. I shop on Saturdays for my family of 5. I usually buy a pack of 6 chicken thighs, a pack of 5 pork chops, and a pound of ground turkey. We eat those at the beginning of the week. We don’t eat meat with every meal though. I use the veggies that will go back quickly at the beginning of the week and save the frozen packs for later in the week. My kids eat fruit quickly so berries and bananas are gone right away. Apples and oranges last the rest of the week.
anon
I’m shopping for a family of 5, and fridge space has been my limiting principle. I’m down to once every 9-10 days, which is where you are, and don’t really see a way to go less frequently. We go through about 2.5 gallons of milk in that time. Milk takes up a lot of space in the fridge!
anon
Family of 4, here. We’ve always shopped once a week, so this hasn’t been a huge change for us. We’re now going every 10-14 days for a “big” shopping trip and maybe one other time a week to restock essentials (see last bullet point). The rules we abide by:
– Fresh meat, veggies, and fruits that go bad quickly (bananas and berries) get eaten first/early in the week.
– We have plenty of pantry and freezer staples to make meals later in the shopping cycle. For most purposes, there is nothing wrong with using frozen veggies instead of fresh.
– I am typically NOT stockpiler at all, but we’ve been purchasing dry goods in larger quantities than usual.
– We usually can’t go 2 weeks without restocking bread, milk, and eggs, even in the best of times.
Anon
We only shop every two weeks normally. We’re shopping weekly now because with everyone being home all the time we go through food a lot faster, and I have also not wanted to brave our local Costco – my normal shopping venue – because ours has wait times of up to 1 hour just to get in, and then apparently 1-hour waits in the checkout line. I’ll just go to the grocery store, thanks.
How we manage to shop less frequently:
– I buy meat frozen or if I buy fresh, we cook it that night or the next night or it goes into the freezer. My mom taught me this before I moved out on my own: when meat goes on sale, buy a lot and then wrap it well (we use plastic wrap and then foil on the outside), label it and freeze it. I realize this is controversial but my grandmother, mother and I have all been cooking frozen meat in the crock-pot for decades now and we have never had a problem. So we do that quite a bit.
– I buy fresh vegetables and always try to find the latest dates on things like containers of salad mix, etc. so they won’t go bad before they get used up. I tend to buy longer-lasting vegetables like brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips, turnips, artichokes, etc. that will last in the refrigerator. Frozen vegetables are another good option; we buy the ones that are just the vegetables with no sauces, etc. Frozen peas are a great no-effort add in to tons of pasta and other dishes.
– I think a lot of it is just tracking what you eat and how much and buying accordingly. I know if I buy one box of cereal vs. two boxes we will run out of cereal before the end of the week. The other key is doing some level of meal planning. When my husband and I first started living together, we would buy groceries, and then on a whim decide to cook Italian or Thai or whatever and go out for more groceries vs. using what we already had to make dinner. Lots of wasted food and money doing things that way. It’s hugely helpful to, before you shop, figure out how many dinners need to be made that week (pre-quarantine we did not make dinner every night because of kid evening activities), what people might want to have, and then make your list accordingly. If someone wants something specific and there aren’t ingredients for it in the house, guess what? We aren’t having what you wanted, but I’ll put the ingredients on the list for next week. Cook and eat what you have on hand is a great way to reduce waste of all kinds.
– Finally, one of the best things I ever did was take a cooking class on “how to cook without a recipe,” which was all about taking ingredients that you had on hand and making dinner out of it. Turns out you can pretty much turn any vegetable + almost any meat into stir fry if you also have rice or noodles and sauce or ingredients for sauce. Learning how to cook more flexibly helped me cut down on our grocery spend because I can buy fewer ingredients, buy things when they’re cheap, and buy things that are flexible and still make good meals.
Anon
One more thing: we have an upright freezer and always have had one; it was one of the first appliances we bought. It really changes the game in terms of being able to store meat and other things for meal prep. I realize not everyone has room for one but we could not get by, now, with just the freezer space in our refrigerator. It’s a worthwhile investment if folks have the room, IMO.
Anon
I’m getting instant cart deliveries slightly more often than once a week. We had a chest freezer we hadn’t used in years due to energy costs, but we feel it’s worth the extra $20-$30 a month during this period. So I buy enough proteins for 5-7 meals and freeze 3-4 most weeks. Then I have to be on top of my thawing game, which is a day or two in the fridge before cooking.
I’m of course talking about fish/poultry/meat here. If you don’t eat as much meat then it’s a lot easier to do because veggies keep longer in the fridge. I try to use the more tender veggies first, and if they start to look ragged I try to use them up, like making kind of a green sauce/harissa type thing with some parsley, cilantro, and lemon that had started to look long in the tooth (add garlic, a shallot, olive oil, salt and pepper and put in the nutri bullet; delicious on everything.)
I’ve been making my own bread because bread was hard to find, but now flour is equally hard to find so I’m glad I have a couple of loaves in the freezer.
Thanks, It Has Pockets!
I live in the city and I was so used to a weekend shopping trip to get the bulk of what I’d need for the week, schlepping it home on foot, and then returning occasionally throughout the week for fresh meat, seafood, and/or veggies for dinner.
It helps that my grandmother had an order of Omaha Steaks (which included chicken and pork) shipped to us, we don’t need to worry about meat as much, but I have been buying more frozen meats, and shrinkwrapped meat that lasts longer in the fridge and is easier to freeze if necessary. But sparse grocery trips means we sometimes need to go a few days without fresh fruit or veggies, and make do with frozen peas or canned tomatoes, or tomato sauce! I’m also eating ramen more often, like I’m back in college. Sometimes I go to the corner store for a few essentials between major grocery runs. But the biggest change is needing to drive to the grocery store! I don’t like to drive unless I have to, but I simply cannot schlep 7-14 days worth of food up the hill by myself.
Anon
Meal planning, buying a variety of fruit and veg, and knowing how much of certain stables (milk and eggs, for us) we need to get through 2 weeks.
My kids eat fruit at every meal, so I’ll buy berries and yellow bananas for the first few days, then move on to grapes and the bananas that were green, then oranges and apples. They don’t get their favorite fruits (berries) for more than the first week, but they survive. And we also have canned/frozen fruit and apple sauce as backups. I have a similar strategy for vegetables–carrots, celery, broccoli, squash last for ages, so we eat the lettuce, peppers, and green beans first.
Anonome
How do you temporarily store wet, heavily soiled, or musty things that aren’t enough to do a full load of laundry, but that you don’t want in the hamper? Bath towels, garage rags, etc.
I’m trying to tidy, but just not coming up with a good solution. Our house doesn’t naturally have good ventilation (rancher with high, slim windows and poor room layout with weirdly-placed vents) so stuff just doesn’t dry well naturally.
Cat
-On the drying rack we use for air-drying clean laundry (for stuff like bath towels, not gross dirty rags)
-Draped across the washer or dryer (ditto above)
-On the shower curtain rod
-Outside on a chair or deck
-Draped across the utility sink
Cat
Duh, should clarify, this is just until the items are dry enough to put in the hamper – not all week. If something is really soiled and I’m worried it would stain or bleach the regular clothes, I do run a special load to clear that stuff out.
anon
dirty rags draped over the edge of a tub or sink and then in the hamper once they dry. For bath robes and towels to dry between uses, we actually have a standalone coat rack in the bedroom.
Senior Attorney
Honestly? I just wash ’em. Life’s too short and my brain is too small to worry about that stuff.
anon
YUP.
Anon
I wash them even if there isn’t enough for a full load.
Anon
Yep. We have a newfangled washer that automatically adjusts the water level based on what’s in the tub – we can’t set the water level ourselves. Since we got it I don’t really worry about washing partial loads because the washer is adjusting the water level.
Anon
We toss it in the washing machine but don’t run it until we have enough. I wouldn’t do this with anything too stinky though.
Pink
I had a kid so there would always be an abundance of wet/soiled things for me to wash. Kidding…sort of. Like others have said, if I don’t have a full load I will wash a small load. It’s certainly not the greenest option, but it’s humid here so stuff never completely dries.
Anon
I have something like this in my pantry: https://www.amazon.com/MIAOKE-Hanging-Laundry-Baskets-Organizing/dp/B07Q487KFW/
I hang wet cloths on the rails.
Housecounsel
Subjecting myself to intense criticism for caring about what a mask looks like, but I ordered these from Johnny Was and they’re so pretty.
https://www.johnnywas.com/masks-and-scarves
Anonymous
Wow, they are stunning. Normally I don’t get sucked into this kind of thing, but we may be wearing these things on and off for a couple years.
Anon New Yorker
Wow I love these!
anon
These are beautiful. I need fabric masks and I am buying these. Thank you for sharing.
Cat
Did you go with the silk or the cotton? I am thinking silk may be more comfortable in summer and I like the assortment of prints shown slightly better. (Are the 5 masks a subset of those 6 prints? Or are there other prints they don’t show online?)
Housecounsel
I went with the cotton sateen. But now I may go back and order silk. I don’t know if there are other prints but I love the “signature” one.
Anon
Sounds like the prints you get are up to chance? But they’re all quite nice. I also ordered some. You should get a commission, Housecounsel!
Housecounsel
I should! But for the record, I am not!
Carmen Sandiego
I love these – so pretty! I might have to get some.
Question – it looks like some are silk. Does anyone know if those as protective as cotton and/or if they are more breathable. I have a plain white, double-layered cotton mask, but I’m not going to lie, I run hot and the feeling of it on my face makes me feel like I am suffocating. Granted, I haven’t worn it enough to get used to it, because I rarely leave the house to go to the grocery, but I do not love it and wouldn’t mind something that felt lighter if it was still effective.
CountC
Oh man, echo the posters above. Those are gorg. I pre-ordered a pack!
AnotherAnon
Thank you and same! I feel so silly but if I have to wear a mask, I want to to be something I enjoy wearing. A friend who’s having a hard time (recently separated from her dirtbag husband and now a single mom in a new supervisor role) made a mask and mailed it to me with a note that making masks is her new therapy. I might have cried.
No Longer Anon
My mom made masks with Obama’s face on them in a red white and blue fabric.
They are extremely popular, she’s almost out of the fabric (which used to be my brother’s bedroom curtains). She’s mailed them to tons of people now.
Pink
Love it! DH went to the grocery store a few weeks ago and saw a woman with a mask covered in what looks like sprinkles. But if you got within six feet of her, you could tell they were penises. I must have one of these masks. Universe, help me find that woman!
Anon
Penis mask
https://canoe.com/news/good-news/utah-moms-penis-face-masks-raises-thousands-for-charity
anonshmanon
I get a kick out of the idea that somebody had Obama curtains in their room! Fantastic!
No Longer Anon
He was like 10 when he chose it, he loved them.
ANON
I want one! Does she sell them?
pugsnbourbon
These are really nice-looking.
I think masks are kind of like sunscreen – the best one is the one you’ll use consistently. If knowing your mask is pretty makes it easier to wear, I don’t see that as frivolous at all.
No Longer Anon
How DARE you try to wear something pretty in the midst of all of this! We should all be using old rags and boxer shorts to make masks, THINK of the medical personnel!
Jk, they’re really pretty and I love them!
Anonymous
You are all going to look like the rich folks from the Hunger Games! Good for you! Bless your hearts.
Senior Attorney
Wow, fab! Just ordered a set — thank you!
Anon
I misread that listing and I thought it was 5 masks for $250! It’s 5 masks for $25 or 50 for $250. Carry on!
Is it Friday yet?
I totally ordered the silk ones yesterday! I also got an order of lilac gingham ones from Tucker – they arrived today.
KS IT Chick
If you’re looking for something entertaining & informative about couture masks, check our yesterday’s Indicator podcast from Planet Money. They interviewed a designer who pivoted to making masks when her red carpet business dried up.
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/06/851752693/masks-en-vogue
Veronica Mars
I knew I wanted to be a mom when I was volunteering with young kids and a little girl asked to come sit in my lap. So cute, my heart just melted and I knew I’d want kids of my own one day. Maybe that’s not typical, a “lightbulb” moment, but that’s what happened for me. In terms of planning with my husband (he expressed he wanted kids early on in our dating relationship and we went through a family planning exercise in pre marital counseling), it’s more of a question of when. This pandemic has pushed our timeline back considerably. I don’t want to be pregnant during the pandemic, period. I’m willing to wait until 2021-2022 if needed, I’m young enough. But we’ll see how this unfolds.
Veronica Mars
Oops, double post please delete
Anon for this
Just venting here, but it’s one of those days:
– thought someone else was co-worker A because both are wearing facemasks and both have same height, build, and coloring. i am so embarrassed
– spilled coffee on my keyboard, mouse, and mousepad before 9AM this morning
– took a while to find paper towels in the office because the admin have locked it up (understandable but said admin wasn’t there today!)
– outlook is acting up and making it hard to search emails (yes i could just reboot but knowing our IT infrastructure, i run the risk of not being able to log in for most of the day while IT attempts to fix issue)
No Longer Anon
It’s hard to recognize people without the benefit of a mouth/nose!
I have to wear a mask when I’m at hospitals and a number of times now a little kid has cried or panicked when they see me at the children’s hospital. Their moms all explained it as that they associate any young woman in a mask with medical personnel, who they aren’t the biggest fans of due to treatments. :(
Anon
Aww :(. My kid’s daycare teachers will be wearing masks when we eventually go back and I’m nervous it will freak her out. I think we’re going to have to do some pretend playing school with DH and I wearing masks to get her comfortable with it.
House Blogs?
Anyone know of any good forums (kind of like this one) where I can get/exchange ideas on home remodel/decor/decorating? Not finding Houzz very helpful – but would love to be able to post a question “should I pay the extra for all wood floors or stick with carpet on half” and have those with interest in those topics give me their thoughts..
Anonymous
Apartment Therapy?
Senior Attorney
Get the wood floors.
Anonymous
OP: I consider this a sign from on high, and am getting the wood floors….
Senior Attorney
HAHAHA!! Enjoy!
ON HIGH
“Buy the wood floors.”
Anon
Seconded. You won’t regret it.
Anonymous
MakeupAlley has a Home Board.
AnonInHouse
Not sure if you’re still reading, but a poster here mentioned The Keeping Room’s “My Furniture Forum” and wow is it a trove of information about all things furniture or interior related.
Anon
Pillow recommendations? My dog has ripped up some bed pillows, 2 throw pillows and an actual queen sleeping pillow. She has been having definite anxiety during quarantine, barking all the time (unlike her) at the increase in people walking by with or without dogs. We’re working on that issue, but we need new pillows too.
I ordered a 2 pack of shredded memory foam queen pillows from Amazon, and they came yesterday. They’re not great, too flat and lumpy. Any recommendations for a side sleeper pillow that doesn’t collapse? Buying pillows remotely is hard!
No Longer Anon
Try putting the memory foam ones in the dryer with a tennis ball. Not sure for how long but I bet there’s info online. I have shredded memory foam pillows and they are almost too full, not flat at all.
Anon
Fellow side sleeper here! I use a firm-ish natural latex pillow that I bought on amaz0n. It’s the first I’ve had that’s thick and supportive enough, and it hasn’t flattened out at all even after a few years of use. It does feel a bit warmer than regular pillows, but a silk pillowcase is enough to keep it quite comfortable.
Junior Associate
I love my Dunlopillow. BF loves his Tempur. Dunlopillow is more springly whereas Tempur is, well, tempur and will mold to your body.
Horse Crazy
Quarantine seems like as good of a time as any to work on my skincare routine – I almost never leave the house, and when I do, I wear a mask!
So, I have combination, acne-prone skin, and I have the skincare routine of a teenager. I use the Neutrogena grapefruit face scrub and the Neutrogena oil-free moisturizer with SPF 15 – and that’s it. If I’m wearing makeup, I don’t use the moisturizer at all – it makes my skin greasy under my makeup. I’ve never started using better products because I’ve never taken the time to find new products and test them, and these ones have always mostly worked for me. Does anyone have suggestions for products that might work for my skin? Or, are there some good resources online that I can look at to figure out what will work for me? I’m willing to go beyond drugstore prices, but not spend a fortune. Thank you!
Airplane.
Check out the guides at the Ordinary, very affordable products. My skin is not like yours so I can’t comment on which ones to use, but the guide walks you through it.
Anonymous
Kathleen Jennings Beauty on Instagram is great. She posts routines and products. It’s a little (ok, a lot) mask heavy, but my skin has never looked better.
Carmen Sandiego
I would try the La Roche-Posay Toleriane Facial Fluid for moisturizer. It does not have SPF in it, but it is what my derm recommended when I was in my early 20’s and dealing with lots of acne, and I LOVE it – have used it ever since. Be cautious buying it on Amazon, though, as sometimes they definitely have knockoffs, I’ve stopped buying it through them!
I also always, always, recommend the Herbivore Blue Tansy mask. When I started using it, I didn’t have acne, but definitely had redness and hormonal blemishes around my jawline (don’t think it was quite as bad as acne, but definitely noticeable), and that has cleared up completely. When I first started using it, I did it 4ish times a week, and over time have reduced to 1-2 times a week. I now also use their Blue Lapis oil at night.
pugsnbourbon
I have sensitive, combination skin and had awful hormonal acne until I went on spironolactone. Using the grapefruit scrub daily could be stripping your skin and making it produce more oil, which may then lead to the oiliness you mention with the moisturizer. In addition to the spiro, I went ultra-gentle with my face wash, switching to chemical exfoliants and using them sparingly (I have a script for tretinoin), and using a non-comedogenic moisturizer with SPF. I use Aveeno of Cerave products.
Anon
+1 to stopping use of the scrub. Most people with acne don’t recognize that their skin is actually sensitive – it took me forever to realize this. Switch to very gentle, scent free products meant for sensitive skin and I will bet you’ll see a lot of improvement in two weeks. Then start adding products one at a time if you want to experiment with serums, vitamin C, or retinoids (totally go with prescription here, the OTC “retinols” barely work, and take 6 months to even slightly work.)
Beginner routine: Gentle wash, moisturizer for sensitive skin. Twice per day. Add a gentle sunscreen in the AM.
Anonymous
My derm said to look for a wash with both glycolic and salicylic acids, and to drop the scrub for a weekly mud mask. I like the Avene green wash and mud. She also said to look for a mineral sunscreen, I like CeraVe. For night, I use the Kiehl’s midnight recovery oil, which sounds scary but is really healing.
Anon
I used to think moisturizer made my skin greasy too, but it turned out I was over cleansing and causing access oil production. Your cleaner is very harsh so that could be it for you. My skin was actually dehydrated!
Also, learning the different between dry skin and dehydrated skin made a big difference. I needed to drink more water!
ANon
I know there is not a one size fits all answer – but how long after you buy a house can you usually move in? DH and I would like to buy a house in 2021, but we need to renew our apartment lease soon. The way our lease is written, even if we break it early, we are liable for the duration of the lease, unless they are able to re-let the apartment. Month to month is an option, but the monthly premium for that is absurd and you still have to give 60 days notice. we can afford and would be ok with a month or two of overlap because I am assuming we will want some time to do some stuff to the house, like paint, but we can’t really afford to pay a mortgage and months and months of our lease at the same time. any tips for how to figure this out?
Walnut
I have bought three houses and moved into each of them immediately after signing the closing papers. The houses have varied from move in ready to not having hot water in the shower.
Cat
Are you talking about from the day you sign the agreement of sale to the day you close? If you need a mortgage allow 2 months.
You can move in immediately after closing, but many people allow for a few weeks in between to handle projects that are difficult once you’re in the house (e.g., refinishing floors or painting).
OP
yes, talking about day sign agreement to the day you close. we will need a mortgage. and will probably be putting down 30-35%
Anon
That depends on you and the seller. I managed 2 weeks from contract to close on my current house, but that is unusually quick. 4-6 weeks is probably closer to normal.
I had everything on my end together when I signed the contract, my finances were really straightforward, both the seller and I were eager to get it done and the house didn’t need any work. It actually happened so quickly that the new blinds the sellers ordered arrived after closing, so they let me know and I installed them. No biggie.
Cat
2 weeks! Wow.
Ours was 6 weeks. Would have been 5 but for a dumb technicality required by our mortgage company. If an issue comes up in inspection, that’s typically when the timing gets pushed more (are you going to walk away? Will the sellers fix it and how long will that take? etc.)
Anon
I was leaving a crappy relationship and staying with friends, so I was *MOTIVATED*. The house had been a rental and the renters were pissed about showings and all the crap that I’m sure is totally annoying, so they moved out early, giving the sellers both reason and the ability to move quickly. I wasn’t picky about everything being perfect, and my financing was really straightforward. I was and am so thankful the stars and planets aligned to get the deal done so quickly.
AFT
Agree with Cat here – only addition is that if you have a big project to do, you may want to do it before move in (e.g., floors or remodeling). I have generally ended up with a 1-2 week period between close and having to exit last house (just coincidentally and not intentionally) because we haven’t had big projects to do, but know people who close and move the same day (a little dicey but doable).
Anonymous
Painting shouldn’t take more than a week- you hire painters and move in
anon a mouse
Technically, you own the house as soon as you close, so you can move in anytime after that. Closing date is usually 30-45 days after you put in an offer, but could go up to 60 days depending on how you write your contract.
In my area (NoVa), it’s common for sellers to list their houses in early Spring (like late Feb through Easter) and request a rent-back through the end of June so kids can finish their school year before they pack up the house. In that case, you would own the house but the sellers would pay you rent from closing date until you actually moved in. (Or, in this hot market, people will throw in free rent-back for 2-3 months to make their offer stand out.) Your local realtor can help you navigate all this and advise you on the norms in your area.
Anonymous
We’re in DC and looking to buy in NoVa in early spring next year…any recommendations for a realtor that is good in the NoVa area? We know how competitive real estate has gotten with Amazon…
Anon
I moved in about a month before closing because the seller had already moved to her new house and I wanted to gtfo of my apartment. I was technically renting it, which I think got added in to the sale price or closing costs or something.
Anonymous
In a similar situation we signed a 9-month lease that expired when we planned to start looking at houses, then went month to month.
public transportation
What strategies will people be using on public transit as offices reopen? I know it will be impossible to wait for subway cars or busses that won’t be crowded. Obviously I’ll wear a mask, gloves, try not to touch things, but wondering if there are other ideas for trying to reduce risk. Unfortunately it seems trains were a vector in the early part of my city’s spread.
Pure Imagination
My strategy is going to be to request an accommodation to WFH due to my high-risk medical condition. I simply don’t see how my long and crowded public transit commute in the Bay Area can be done with anything remotely resembling safety. It’s sardine-crowded crowded, it’s not possible to just “wait for the next train” or go early/late due to the high crowds on the platform and the demands of my work schedule, and we’re also likely to see schedule adjustments and other changes that are going to make it harder to get to work in the same amount of time as before. I have to take my health really seriously and I’m not getting back on Bart at the first possible opportunity. Once I DO feel that the risk has decreased enough (i.e., low numbers of new cases, deaths, etc.), then I’ll do mask, gloves, etc. and hope that it’s not too terrible.
Pure Imagination
Also, as I’ve mentioned previously, my job can be done 100% WFH and I’m more productive there.
No Longer Anon
The brand Wyze has some KN95 masks for sale right now. The reviews are so so and they’re not cheap, but if you have to go back before it feels safe, N95 masks are going to be better protection than cloth masks for high risk people.
public transportation
Thanks, I’ll check out that website for the better masks.
I should mention that I work in government, and we’ll be called back to the office despite the fact that many of us could easily WFH, because of the antiquated views on WFH and fear of offending taxpayers. Ideally I would work from home for a while longer but that won’t be an option.
Anonymous
i’m literally moving to where i can walk to work and never take the subway again.
Anonymous
Does anyone here use a leave-in conditioner instead of a shower conditioner, and if so, what do you use and how’s it working? I’d like to make my showers shorter and I wonder if this can work. Detangling and softness are my issues right now. I shampoo every day and have abundant but fine shoulder-length wavy hair.
AnotherAnon
I only used leave-in conditioner when I was swimming every day. I have the same hair type as you. Honestly, if your only goal is to reduce shower time, I would suggest you shampoo less frequently, if possible. In my experience leave-in conditioner is a little different than shower conditioner: it’s almost too much for every day use unless your hair is pretty damaged. It’s also slightly tricky to work with (but I am extremely lazy): you have to start at the tips of your hair, use just enough but not too much, and work your way up but still avoid the scalp so your hair doesn’t immediately look greasy. It looks like they don’t even make the type I used to use. I’m sure they’ve improved formulas in the years since I used it. Good luck!
Naya
+1 including the swimming every day
Anon
I can’t imagine conditioner is adding that much time to your shower? Are you trying to get in an out in under a minute or something?
Celia
I use conditioner in the shower. While I let it soak, I take care of soaping the rest of me. Rinse all. Since I’m in Southern California, I use a leave-in conditioner as well, during the summer months (so like, 3/4 of the year). Is it humid where you are? Arid? That will affect your hair.
Anon
Fine shoulder length hair. Go to leave-in conditioner that I use daily: Ouai. Doesn’t weight hair down, but great for detangling and also acts as heat protectorant if you are going to be blowdrying and/or styling with hot tools. Highly recommend.
AnonATL
I like the shea moisture leave in conditioner. My hair is wavy and thick and it works really well once you get used to the amount you need. They also make a hair masque that I use periodically in the shower.
I agree with the poster above. If you can get away with washing even every other day, it will save you a lot of time.
Anonymous
Thanks, all. Right now it takes a couple of minutes to wash all of the conditioner out of my hair so that’s why I’m looking for something that might save some time. It gets greasy when I shampoo less than five or six times a week
Anonymous
Dog owners, esp those of you in suburbia. How do you / do you contain your dog? Fence? Electric fence? Training only?
I live in a town with 1 acre zoning. None of my neighbors have fences but they all have dogs. Sometimes the dogs are lazing about the yard but mostly they are either being walked or inside. I thought my next door neighbor’s dogs had an e-collar but they were in my yard today and it turns out they are just under voice command.
We had a dog a decade ago in a row house with a backyard that was fenced- I sort of thought it was fencing or nothing. We are considering getting a dog in the next few years now that the kids are a little older and I’d been waffling on the fencing b/c I’m not wild on electric fencing. But maybe I can just train them?
FWIW we are on a road that is off a busy road, so I really don’t want my dog wandering off the property. But somehow my neighbors all have dogs and do not have this issue?
Carmen Sandiego
Physical fence. I would say this is especially important if other dogs are roaming around off-leash. We’re in a suburb and for some reason people let their dogs off-leash all the time, and, surprise, surprise, our dog was attacked by an off-leash dog while we were walking her (on-leash) and had to have 4 surgeries to get better. So, this is a super hot button issue for me! I do not like other random dogs around my girl.
CountC
+1 I put in a physical fence. I do not like invisible fences for numerous reasons and would never be comfortable without a fence and relying on training – other loose dogs, the fact that they are animals and training can only overcome so much instinct, people generally (dogs get stolen), the comfort of others in the area, etc.
Anon
We have a large suburban lot. It really depends on the dog. We have a senior retriever we adopted a year ago who is a velcro dog and doesn’t leave our side, certainly not the yard. Our hound dog we’ve had for years is a wild explorer who digs out from under our fence. The hound dog doesn’t go outside without his e-collar on – it’s remarkable for getting him to come home when he’s escaped and is zooming around the neighborhood like a fool. https://www.amazon.com/TBI-Pro-Heavy-Duty-Rechargeable-Waterproof/dp/B07MXRSZCX
AnonInfinity
I feel pretty strongly that you need some sort of fencing, no matter what it is if your dog is going to be outside not on a leash. It sounds like you live out in the country, so even the best trained dogs can get distracted by a squirrel or whatever and bolt or just ignore you. Your neighbor’s dog is a good indication of that. And if you go by training alone, you’d have to be outside with the dog every time it’s off leash.
If you don’t want a visible fence, I think the only real option is an e-collar. I grew up in the country and a lot of people had significant acreage so put up dog runs in their back yards. That’s an option if you don’t want to fence the whole property. It was also incredibly common for people to just keep their dogs outside with no fencing or training or anything, which resulted in a lot of dogs killing livestock, mysteriously disappearing, or being hit by cars (dangerous for the dogs and the drivers).
Anonymous
I didn’t really ask what I should do, but wanted to ask what people here with suburban lots and dogs do.
I want to ask my neighbors but don’t want it to come off super awkward.
AnonInfinity
Ok? I did post what people in the area where I grew up chose to do and the results of those decisions. It sounds like you don’t want to have any kind of fencing, so that’s fine, just know that your dog may disappear, get attacked, cause a traffic accident, or various other scenarios that can be easily avoided with some sort of fencing. Also, you see your neighbors’ dogs hanging out in the yard, but you don’t know what the dogs do when you’re not watching, which is that they probably roam around and cross roads/property lines if they are not physically restrained in some way. This is based on my own personal experience as someone who lived more than 20 years in an area where it was common not to fence or otherwise restrain dogs.
Anon
I think it’s very dog specific, but I think above all, they shouldn’t be outside without supervision if you don’t have a physical fence. Otherwise, I have a velcro dog and he won’t get more than 10-20 feet from me in the best circumstances, much less leave the yard.
Anonymous
Physical fence to keep your dog in and others out. We had one dog who could jump, climb, and dig her way out, so for her we had to add an electric fence. I would never rely on an electric fence alone unless you are actively supervising the dog at all times. If another dog comes into the yard, your dog won’t be able to run away.
AnonATL
We have our backyard fully fenced for our two 45lb rascals. The oldest one is 6 and he is is trained well enough to be off leash in the front yard under very strict supervision, the 2 year old dog.. not so much.
Problem #1 is they are both chasers. They see a chipmunk, bird, fox, or cat, they are going after it. They come back and won’t chase down other dogs, but it’s not safe regardless.
Problem #2 is the other critters in the neighborhood. We have coyotes, deer, and other dogs that our fence keeps out.
It also let’s us be lazy and leave them in the backyard where they are happy on nice afternoons like today while we work.
Digby
We use a run – our sub doesn’t allow fences, and I don’t feel 100% confident about e-collars. We have a friend whose dog would take the momentary pain of the e-collar shock so that she could roam the neighborhood, while her littermate would sit obediently at the property edge. The run has worked fine for years, except for the new neighbors who let their dogs roam freely – I’m concerned about them coming over and being jerks to our dog.
Anonymous
I’m always with mine when he’s off leash. I would never leave a dog alone in a fenced yard. We’re Chicago suburb (so not in the country anything) and coyotes have jumped fences.
Rainbow Hair
Here’s maybe a fun question … pool floats! Do you have a favorite? I’d love to get my husband something for father’s day, something nice and loungey, that has a drink holder, to really give that “vacation in your back yard [since we aren’t going anywhere else any time soon]” vibe. It can’t be enormous since we have a non-enormous pool, but something functional and fun!
Rainbow Hair
P.S. Hope you area all well. It’s been a long, strange while since I was really around on here.
Anon
Hope you’re doing well too! I noticed your absence and you were missed.
AnotherAnon
Yes! Big Mouth. I was perusing their web site this morning but couldn’t figure out how to buy… Anyway, we bought a house with a pool last year, and the previous owners gifted us a llama pool float from Big Mouth. She weathered an entire winter out in the yard/pool in the sun and rain. Last weekend I finally cleaned her off with bleache, gave her a little bit more air and she is good to go! I’m very impressed.
Rainbow Hair
Oooh thank you!
Rainbow Hair
Just bought a ridiculous thing made by Big Mouth! Thank you for the rec!
AnotherAnon
Yes! Glad it was helpful. What did you choose?
Senior Attorney Paging Ms. B
Here’s the link to the leopard face masks. They arrived yesterday and they are great!
https://www.etsy.com/listing/799049795/4-pack-adult-face-mask-100-cotton?ref=yr_purchases
Veronica Mars
Carol? Is that you?
Anon
HA
Veronica Mars
I’m just kidding, those are super fab!!
Anon
I was the Ha and realized it could’ve come out snarkiest than I meant about the masks. It was just a funny response and I wanted to acknowledge that, but the masks are also fab.
Senior Attorney
I don’t even get the reference but don’t worry, I’m presuming good intentions! :)
Anon
Tiger King
Senior Attorney
Ah. That would have been my guess.
Anonymous
Does anyone have a work set up that is specific to working from their couch? I live in a 1BR and have no place for a desk, will be working from home indefinitely. I could work from my kitchen island but that is not ideal either. I’m thinking some sort of double monitor situation + keyboard might help but not sure how this would work from the couch?? help
Anonymous
I have worked from the couch and from an armchair and do not recommend it. It’s very hard on the back and neck and not conducive to concentration. If you have no other option, I’d look for a computer table whose base slides under the couch to bring the table surface closer to you. Do not use a TV tray meant for dining–the height is wrong. Sit at the edge of the couch with your feet on the floor and put pillows behind your back if necessary.
A lift-top coffee table can work well if you can find one and the height is right.
Naya - day off
I posted yesterday asking if it was okay to take a day off next week for the job I started about a month ago – asked for it (with the disclaimers posters recommended) and got the day off! no problem! So I’m sure it depends on where you work, and I’m not in as rigid an environment as a law firm, but figured I’d share.
Anon
I’m glad you got the day off – but it wasn’t that you wouldn’t get the day off its that you shouldn’t ask for a day off a new job for the first 90 days in any work environment. That is the standard job advice I see for all industries.